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CDEffilGRT DEPOSm 



THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



The Perennial Revival 
A Plea for Evangelism 

Revised Edition 



By WILLIAM B. RILEY 

PASTOR FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. MINNEAPOLIS 

Author of " The Crisis of the Church," " The Evolution 
of the Kingdom," " Messages for the Metropolis," etc. 




AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 

PHILADELPHIA 
BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS 

LOS ANGELES TORONTO, CAN. 



•B\/311' 



Copyright 1916 by 
A. J. ROWLAND, Secretary 



Published October, 1916 



NOV -8 1916 

©aA4462n8 



s^ 



PAUL TO TIMOTHY: 

" Preach the word ; be instant In season, 

out of season; . . do the work of an 

evangelist, fulfil thy ministry." 



PREFACE 

For full twenty-five years evangelism v^as on the decline 
in this country. In the early ministry of Mr. Moody 
" soul-winning '* was his watchword, and the results were 
more pronounced and satisfactory than ever appeared 
after this mighty man of God turned his attention to 
the correction of church-ianity. In recent years the cry 
of *' evangelism " has been taken up again, and the hope 
of a wide-spread revival is giving expression tO' prayers 
and shape to plans. The cry is worthy " the Church of 
God." If this volume adds aught to the realization of 
" A Perennial Revival " the writer will be most content 
with his reward. To make a contribution to such a result 
is cooperation and companionship with Him who came 
" to seek and to save that which was lost." 

W. B. R. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

Preface vii 

I. The Imperative Need of a Perennial Re- 
vival I 

11. The Primitive Church and the Perennial 

Revival 17 

III. The Apostolic Spirit and the Perennial 

Revival 31 

IV. The Place of Prayer in the Perennial 

Revival 43 

V. The Enduement of Power and the Peren- 
nial Revival 61 

VI. Six Pivotal Points in the Perennial Re- 
vival 75 

VII. The Regular Church Services and the 

Perennial Revival 91 

VIII. Husbanding the Results of the Perennial 

Revival 109 

IX. The Relation of Street Preaching to the 

Perennial Revival 125 

X. The Relation of Pew-rentals to the Pe- 
rennial Revival 141 

XI. The Relation of Bible Study to the Pe- 
rennial Revival 157 



CONTENTS 
Chapter Page 

XII. The Relation of Giving to the Perennial 

Revival 175 

XIII. The Patron Evangelist of the Perennial 

Revival 187 

XIV. The Perennial Revival and the Refor- 

mation OF Society 201 

XV. The Perennial Revival and World Evan- 
gelization 215 



THE IMPERATIVE NEED OF A PERENNIAL 
REVIVAL 



CHAPTER I 

THE IMPERATIVE NEED OF A PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

EVANGELISM is, at this moment, the watchword of 
the churches. For the first time in many decades 
the watchword is worthy the followers of the Nazarene. 
With a strange unanimity conservatives and critics alike 
have accepted the term, and with one voice are calling 
for evangelism. 

Do not ask what we mean by the term; that would 
divide our forces instantly into many factions. It is 
not to be expected that the verbal inspirationist and 
the destructive critic will accept common definitions of 
any theme. And yet even these may agree in their 
desire for a revival of the religion of Christ which shall 
be potent and permanent, provided the word " revival " 
is kept strictly to its original meaning. It is not to the 
term itself, but to the uses to which it has been put, that 
many object. They say it often describes a condition 
of unreasonable excitement produced by appeals to the 
emotions of men, and destined to end in little or no 
lasting good. 

Occasions of complaint at this point have not been 
wanting. When we make only a mechanical appeal to the 
feelings of men, stirring in them more of physical ex- 
citement than of spiritual vision, our efforts result only in 
fanatical actions, transient professions, and newspaper 
puffs; but few sinners are saved, and no saints are 
refreshed. 

And yet, as against this fact, it remains true that the 
state of perennial revival is the normal state for the 

3 



4 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

church of Jesus Christ. The men who oppose that idea 
set themselves against apostolic religion and criticize the 
apostolic churchy since the centuries have known few 
revivals such as that in which the church of Jesus Christ 
originated. It is little wonder that people have always 
prayed, and continue to pray, for a duplicate of Pente- 
cost. Adding to the church day by day those that are 
being saved is the ideal state. 

In discussing " The Imperative Need of a Perennial 
Revival," it may be necessary to spend a moment on 

THE DEFINITION 

Revival! What do we mean by it? Let the Standard 
Dictionary speak : *' A renewal of special interest in and 
attention to religious services and duties and the subject 
of personal salvation; a religious awakening." Who can 
object to the definition? Is not that exactly what the 
Psalmist meant when he cried : " Wilt thou not revive us 
again, that thy people may rejoice in thee?" 

Many years ago we knew a church which had been 
without preaching for months; it had worshiped only 
occasionally in a hired hall, while divisions between of- 
ficial brethren distracted the forces of the institution 
which had once been God's agency for saving men. A 
pastor was secured; a house was erected; services be- 
came regular ; brotherly love displaced the old hatred and 
healed the differences ; at the end of six months conver- 
sions began, and every communion witnessed new ac- 
cessions to the organized body of believers. The pastor's 
salary was doubled and paid with greater promptness; 
offerings to missions multiplied many fold ; the " twice- 
a-month " preaching gave way to the employment of a 
pastor for all of his time ; the little body which had, for 
a long season, been without prestige in its association be- 
came one of the most influential. That was a revival ! 



THE IMPERATIVE NEED 5 

Perennial! " Continuing through the year or through 
many years ; unf aiHng ; unceasing ; as, perennial springs." 
The dictionary's figure, " as perennial springs," is a most 
happy one when applied to the problem of the church. 
Those of us who were brought up in the hill-country 
of the South appreciate the difference between the wet- 
weather and the perennial spring. Many a time in the 
rainy season we have driven our knees into the black 
loam of a newly cleared hillside and drunk from a 
vein, full to-day, but destined to fail to-morrow. The 
water was always sorry stuff, and was always used as 
a makeshift of indolence, since the perennial spring was 
at the foot of the hill, and to enjoy it imposed a walk 
in going and work in returning. And yet the cold, re- 
freshing draught from the latter always sent one back 
to his service with a sense of compensation. The springs 
of revival which have characterized recent centuries have 
been toO' much after the wet-weather sort; they have 
opened only at a certain season and remained in action 
for a very short time. Our fathers in the faith behaved 
as if they believed the streams of salvation were closed 
the rest of the year; and one man, at least, brought up 
in a church where that idea of a revival obtained, will 
never forget the utter disappointment, the despair akin 
to that which must characterize the damned, when the 
annual meeting of two weeks had closed and left him 
unsaved. He was like the man in the Bethesda porch. 
He had seen the waters troubled at a " certain season " 
and others stepping in to be made whole, while he must 
remain in his paralysis; for the waters grew quiet, and 
he knew that it would be a twelvemonth before the 
opportunity would return. Strange to say, his seniors 
seemed also to forget that Jesus was at hand, and could 
work the miracle of healing out of season. We believe 
that the very bitterness of that experience gave origin to 



6 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

the idea of this book, and emphasis to a ministry which, 
for thirty years, has sought as assiduously to reach men's 
souls in the dog-days of August as in the appointed season 
of January. 

Perennial! Is not that the word upon which we are 
to lay emphasis if we are rightly to interpret the injunc- 
tion of Paul to Timothy : " Preach the word. Be urgent 
in season, out of season "? 

With this definition of the perennial revival before us, 
let us pass on to the discussion of 

THE NECESSITY 

The very word " necessity " removes us from the 
realm of argument. There are voices, more eloquent 
than ever were heard upon platform, pleading this neces- 
sity; there are silences more urgent than the voices of 
angels. 

The prayer of the saint pleads it. 

It is a blessed fact that regenerate men are ill-content 
to lead a languid Christian life, or to see their churches 
experience the same. William Cowper's hymn is now 
seldom sung in the sanctuary, but we believe it is often 
repeated in the closet: 

Oh, for a closer walk with God, 

A calm and heavenly frame, 
A light to shine upon the road 

That leads me to the Lamb! 

Where is the blessedness I knew 

When first I saw the Lord? 
Where is the soul-refreshing view 

Of Jesus and his word? 

What peaceful hours I then enjoyed! 

How sweet their memory still ! 
But they have left an aching void 

The world can never fill. 



THE IMPERATIVE NEED 7 

Return, O Holy Dove, return, 

Sweet messenger of rest; 
I hate the sins that made thee mourn, 

And drove thee from my breast. 

The dearest idol I have known, 

Whate'er that idol be. 
Help me to tear it from thy throne. 

And worship only thee. 

There are men and women in our churches^ — thank 
God for them — who feel that there is something wrong 
with them when soul-winning ceases and the church be- 
comes content in her barrenness. It is claimed that when 
Tully was banished from Italy and Demosthenes from 
Athens they were never able to look toward their home- 
lands without bursting intO' sobs^ — such was their desire 
to be in their fatherlands again. There are men and 
women to whom the presence and evident favor of God 
is dearer than fair Italy's skies and landscapes were beau- 
tiful to her native-born, and for whom the thought of 
his lost love is more difficult to bear than was banishment 
from the streets of the world's most intellectual city. If 
one wants to feel the necessity of a revival, let him go 
with such into their closets of prayer and listen while 
they cry to God: " Wilt thou be angry with us forever? 
Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt 
thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in 
thee?" 

But we have said there are silences more eloquent still. 
Think of the sanctuaries, in country places and at the 
centers of great cities, which were once crowded with 
ardent worshipers, but now reveal to the Sabbath-travel- 
ing public closed doors or discouragingly small congrega- 
tions. Think of the churches, better filled, but Spirit- 
deserted and dead. Charles Spurgeon says : " Have you 
ever read * The Ancient Mariner ' ? I dare say you 

B 



8 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

thought it one of the strangest imaginations ever put 
together, especially that part where the old mariner rep- 
resents the corpses of dead men rising up to man the 
ship. Dead men pulling the ropes, dead men at the oars, 
dead men steering, dead men spreading the sails! I 
thought, What a strange idea! And yet I have lived to 
see that. I have gone into churches where there was a 
dead man in the pulpit, a dead man reading the notices, a 
dead man rendering the solos, a dead man taking the 
collection, and the pews were filled with the dead." 
Spurgeon has spoken no exceptional experience. What 
an appeal for the necessity of the perennial revival ! 

There are other arguments concerning this necessity 
that are eloquent enough. The steady decrease in the 
accessions to the great denominations, in proportion to 
their numbers, which has characterized recent years ; the 
cry for retrenchment that has smitten the very souls of 
missionary secretaries and treasurers, the compromise 
with worldliness by which the ambitious have hoped to 
keep up appearances and increase the local church ex- 
chequer; the introduction of sensationalism into the pul- 
pit; the parading of so-called new theology in baiting 
for Athenians ; the turning of men from church to lodge, 
and of women and children from sacred meetings to 
matinees and picture shows — all these, and more that 
might be mentioned, emphasize this necessity. No orator 
could do it so well. No angel from heaven could affirm 
it so eloquently. To the man who has an ear capable of 
receiving divine messages these things are nothing else 
than the voice of God announcing the great need of the 
church — a genuine revival, and a revival that shall be 
perennial. 

If he cries to us from heaven, " Turn ye, turn ye," why 
should we not confess our helpless estate, and yet express 
our fiith in his ability to better us by answering back, 



THE IMPERATIVE NEED 9 

''Turn us, O God, of our salvation"? Albert Midlane 
felt and voiced this necessity when he wrote : 

Revive thy work, O Lord, 

Create soul thirst for thee, 
And hungering for the Bread of Life, 

Oh, may our spirits be ! 

THE SOURCE 

Calling attention to defects is a cruel work unless one 
is able to suggest a remedy and is willing to lend his best 
endeavor toward bringing it about. If it be conceded 
that the perennial revival is the long-needed remedy, the 
question remains, " Whence is it to come ? " The answer 
to this question is valuable only in proportion as it is 
scriptural. The man who seeks to solve the problem 
of successful evangelism outside of what the Scriptures 
say deals in pure speculation, deceives himself, and des- 
troys others. Turning to the Book for the answers to 
our question, we draw on the source of true wisdom. 

Probably no one will dispute the statement that the 
first and second chapters of the book of Acts present a 
sample revival. The earnest study of these chapters 
reveals the source of the true revival : 

It originates with the Holy Ghost. 

The promise of the ascended Lord to his disciples was 
this : " Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost 
is come upon you." " When the day of Pentecost was 
fully come " Peter explained his own ability and that 
of his brethren by reminding his auditors of Joel's re- 
mark : " It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I 
will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh : and your sons 
and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men 
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams : 
And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour 
out in those days of my Spirit " ; and Peter declared 



10 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

they were experiencing its fulfilment. The revival did 
not originate with Peter, then; he was only the spokes- 
man. The real source was higher yet, namely, in the 
Holy Ghost. 

This very fact often explains the revival, the origin 
of which non-spiritual men cannot understand. In 1828, 
in Oswego County, N. Y., a work of grace began on a 
barren field. In midsummer one hundred and fifty souls 
were saved and added to the country church. People 
were at a loss to account for it. But wonder was at an 
end with the godly when it was learned that two old 
men, living a mile apart, had selected a point midway, in 
a cluster of trees, and there at the going down of the 
sun had met for months to pray for the outpouring of the 
Spirit of God. Dr. S. F. Smith knew why he wrote the 
words : 

Spirit of holiness, descend, 
Thine ear in kind compassion lend, 

Let us thy mercy see. 
Behold, thy wearying churches wait 

With wistful, longing eyes. 
Let us no more lie thus bereft. 

Oh, bid thy light arise. 
Spirit of Holiness, 'tis thine 
To hear our feeble prayer, 
Come, for we wait thy power divine, 
Let us thy mercy share. 

The Holy Ghost works through human agencies. 

Peter was the principal in the first Pentecost, and from 
that day the Holy Spirit has commenced every consid- 
erable work of grace with the more consecrated. Those 
were wise women who prayed for Mr. Moody first and 
for the people afterward. The first night after Father 
Chiniquy was converted he spent the entire night in 
prayer. The next day he preached, and a thousand souls 
were saved. Some time ago the author received a letter 



THE IMPERATIVE NEED II 

from an evangelist at work in Colorado. The city was 
a popular resort and famed for its worldliness, and yet 
in the first night of the meeting souls were saved. The 
evangelist attributed this to the fact that one woman in 
the town had long prayed for just such a work, and at the 
beginning of these meetings declared her faith that the 
time for God's answer was at hand. 

Several summers ago, at a lake resort in northern In- 
diana, we had to watch against prairie fires. One night, 
after our lawn had been cleaned and grass and brush 
burned, we went out before retiring and poured water 
over the embers until not a spark was visible, and then 
went off to bed, believing that the fire had been utterly 
extinguished. But, ere the mornings the wind had risen 
and stirred a slumbering ember into a rolling flame, which 
fed itself upon the adjacent fuel, and threatened the 
whole prairie and the woodland near at hand. We knew 
not what stick had the coal that, touched by the wind, 
burst into flame and fired the contiguous fuel. It may 
have been a large stick, but quite as likely a small one. 
No matter ; the material together, the wind at work, a live 
coal aocounted for all. So, in spiritual things, a spark of 
love in one heart may not excite apparent promise, but 
when the divine breath blows upon that, others catch 
the fire, and a revival often follows that sweeps the 
church and, going beyond, spreads into the dead, dry 
tinder of sin-slain souls, and converts them into glorious 
light. 

Why, then, should one criticize his brethren when a 
revival is lacking, since a question should be raised with 
reference to his own life — 'why is it the Holy Ghost has 
not done such a work in and through me? Concerning 
the church in Laodicea, Christ said : " Behold, I stand at 
the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and 
open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with 



12 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

him, and he with me." Some man, some woman will be 
doorkeeper to let the Lord in. Why should not I be 
that one? 

The Holy Spirit would gladly enlist all saints in this 
soul-winning service. 

One of the most remarkable things in that second 
chapter of the book of Acts is in the eighth verse ; every 
man heard the gospel on that day in the tongue wherein 
he was born. Peter, then, was not left to work alone. 
The whole company of the disciples must have taken part. 
Jerusalem never saw a greater crowd in her streets; 
her people never heard such a sermon as Peter preached ; 
but the most marvelous thing, that day, was the personal 
work done. The average church now has a larger number 
of disciples of Jesus than were in Jerusalem at that time, 
and yet not a man escaped them. What a suggestion! 
Why should not laymen receive it? While your pastors 
preach, will you not engage to speak to men in an intel- 
ligible tongue? Will you not federate your forces, and 
take a solemn pledge that the unsaved shall not pass from 
the sanctuary without a personal appeal? Why should 
the voice of one saved man be silent before such oppor- 
tunities? Why should God find in his family one dumb 
child ? Joseph Parker says : " We have heard of the 
great musical director, who was conducting a rehearsal 
by four thousand performers. All manner of instruments 
were being played, and all parts of music were being 
sung. In one of the grand choruses, which sounded 
through the vast building like a wind from heaven, the 
keen-eared conductor suddenly threw up his baton and 
exclaimed, ' Flageolet ! ' One of the flageolet players 
had stopped. Something was wanting, therefore, to the 
completeness of the performance, and the conductor 
would not go on, Jesus Christ is conducting his own 
music. There is indeed a vast volume of resounding 



THE IMPERATIVE NEED 1 3 

harmony rolling up in anthems that fill the heavens ; yet 
if one voice is missing, he knows it. If the voice of 
one little child has ceased, he notices the omission. He 
cannot be satisfied with the mightiest billow that breaks 
in thunder around his throne, so long as the tiniest wave- 
let falls elsewhere. Flageolet, where is thy tribute? 
Pealing trumpet he waits thy blast! Sweet cymbals, he 
desires your silvery chimes! Mighty organ, unite thy 
many voices in the deepening thunder of the Saviour's 
praise! And if there be one among us who thinks his 
coarse tones would be out of harmony, let him know 
that Jesus revises every tribute offered in love, and har- 
monizes the discords of our broken life in the music of 
his own perfection." Love him, and bring unto him your 
best. 

THE RESULTS 

There is a growing disposition to ask for the evidences 
of revival, and the question is not impertinent. Revival 
without apparent results is commonly a term without a 
corresponding fact. 

Let us make mention of some of the results that will 
surely appear if the word be worthily employed. 

First, the refreshing of the saints. 

The Psalmist cried : " Wilt thou not revive us again, 
that thy people may rejoice in thee? " Oh, the joy among 
God's sons and daughters when the times of refreshing are 
really on! The sweetest singing is done by the people 
of the perennial revival. The most eflfective prayers are 
poured out in the midst of soul-winning; the most ener- 
getic service is rendered, the most liberal offerings are 
made, the most extensive and genuine sympathy with the 
sinful and sorrowing is then evidenced. One of the 
sad things of bleak winter is that the birds so seldom 
sing. In winter the perfurhe of flowers fails, the fruits 



14 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

are more scarce than evergreens. But what a trans- 
formation comes with spring! Then the air is bursting 
with song, laden with perfume. All the earth is rich 
in blossoms — ^promise of harvest-time; and spring is 
nature's revival! But sweeter than the songs of birds 
is the song of the saint; and he does not sing, he can- 
not sing, except when refreshed in soul: 

In vain we tune our formal songs; 

In vain we strive to rise; 
Hosannas languish on our tongues, 

And our devotion dies. 

On the old farm in Kentucky the large lawn was filled 
with evergreens and fruit trees, together with a beau- 
tiful maple or two. In March the song-birds were in the 
cedars, unseen, but with music sweet. The new green 
twigs putting out were gracious to the smell, and ere 
the month of May was gone, the cherry fruit reddened 
to ripeness. Songs, sweet savors, and luscious fruit! 
That is what nature's revival brings ! But God's revival 
of grace fills the soul with sweeter strains, and causes it 
to breathe out upon the air a purer breath, and gives to 
it a richer fruit ! The happiest man, the holiest man, the 
man most helpful under heaven, is that Christian man 
compassed about with the grace of God. No wonder 
David said : " Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy 
people may rejoice in thee? " 

When saints are revived, sinners are saved. Our 
religious newspapers sometimes report protracted meet- 
ings as having resulted in great revival to the church, 
although no conversions occurred. That is quite impos- 
sible! When Paul and Silas sang, the prisoners heard 
them and grew penitent. When a Pentecost came to the 
apostles and disciples, the streets of Jerusalem were full 
of penitent sinners, inquiring, " Men and brethren, what 



THE IMPERATIVE NEED 15 

shall we do ? " Years ago, when Dr. Alexander Black- 
burn was pastor at Lafayette, Ind., certain pastors in 
that State were oppressed by the reports of the churches, 
and agreed to meet and pray in certain centers for a re- 
vival of the churches located there. When four or five 
of them came to Lafayette, to pray with the pastor, no 
public announcement was made of their coming; no news- 
paper made mention of it; but during the day about a 
dozen members of the church, scarce knowing why, 
dropped into the chapel to pray, and lo, the pastor and his 
associates were on their knees. When night came, with- 
out any announcement except what these people had 
made, the chapel contained an audience. Afterward they 
were crowded into the main church, and some weeks 
later about a hundred converts had sought the Lord, and 
Doctor Blackburn administered such a baptismal service 
as the church had never seen before, nor has it seen such 
a service since. When the saints are refreshed sinners 
are saved. 

Then also, the church receives accessions. The Holy 
Ghost husbands the results of his work. 

It is distressing to report concerning a revival that 
a thousand, fifteen hundred, three thousand, or thirty 
thousand have been converted, when the most diligent 
after-search brings but a bagatelle of that number into 
the churches. The time ought to pass when men con- 
sider as converts those who have held up their hands " to 
count.'' When men's names are written in the Lamb's 
book of Life they will naturally seek membership with 
the church of which that Lamb is the Head. Have we 
not been impressed with the fact that the three thousand 
converts in Jerusalem were '' added together," or asso- 
ciated themselves in the visible organization? When one 
says, " I am a Christian, but I do not think it necessary 
to be a church-member," does he not raise a question 



l6 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

concerning his regeneration? Of what worth is a secret 
disciple to the church, or to Christ? 

We regard him as having been a wise old man, who, 
falling in with young Allyn as he went from Cincinnati 
to Philadelphia to embark in business, asked, " Are you 
a Christian?" "Yes," said Allyn. "Have you any 
letters of commendation?" "Only two." "None 
others? " asked the old man. " Only my church letter." 
" Ah," said the old man, " that is what I wanted to 
hear. Put it into a church as soon as you get into the 
city. I am an old sea-captain. I have sailed the world 
around, and I have found on reaching port it was best 
to tie up to the wharf. It has cost me something, but it 
has kept me from going down before the storm." 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH AND THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER II 

THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH AND THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

THE Minneapolis Journal once published a some- 
what startling report from the pen of a St. Paul 
assayist, who affirmed concerning the quality of some 
sand sent to him from Steel, N. Dak., that he found gold 
in it to the extent of $12,400 per ton. That assay pur- 
ported to have come from a well-boring less than a 
mile south of the court-house at Steel. The gold-bearing 
stratum was announced as found at a depth of one hun- 
dred and eight feet, underlying a stratum of white pebbles, 
indicating that it was a deposit of an ancient creek bed. 
The newspaper article declared that a number of lots 
had been bought up in that vicinity, and there were those 
who trusted that they had secured for themselves a for- 
tune by the purchase of a few feet of land. The article 
concluded thus : " The very richness of the assay inclines 
a good many to be skeptical as to whether the whole 
transaction is straight." Well may men be skeptical 
concerning such a report. Mining projects and miners' 
publications have despoiled not a few speculators. 

And yet when a true find is made great fortunes are 
the easy result, and the men who, by a better scientific 
knowledge, stake out the best claims come away increased 
in goods. No pen or tongue can ever do justice to the 
mine of truth in God's word ! One of the richest pockets 
in all its wide extent exists in the second chapter of the 
book of Acts, the chapter that records the beginning of 
the primitive church. He would be a poor prospector 
indeed who could not stake out almost anywhere in its 

19 



20 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

texts plats of truths covering a spiritual fortune of the 
first order. Take, for instance, the last seven verses ; one 
finds them full of suggestions concerning the subject of 
this discourse — '' The Primitive Church and the Peren- 
nial Revival." " They then that received his word were 
baptized: and there were added unto them in that day 
about three thousand souls. And they continued sted- 
fastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the 
breaking of bread and the prayers. And fear came upon 
every soul: and many wonders and signs were done 
through the apostles. And all that believed were together, 
and had all things common; and they sold their posses- 
sions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any 
man had need. And day by day, continuing stedfastly 
with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, 
they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, 
praising God, and having favor with all the people. And 
the Lord added to them day by day those that were 
saved." (A. R. V.) 

Knowing the inexhaustible resources of this Scripture, 
we shall attempt to appropriate at this time only so much 
of it as pertains to our subject. 

THE ORGANIZATION WAS DIVINELY ORDAINED 

Going back to the forty-first verse we discover the very 
beginning of that body which has been called " the 
church." " Then they that received his word were bap- 
tized, and the same day there were added together (as 
the Greek reads) about three thousand souls." That was 
the first organized body of baptized believers. The literal 
translation, " added together," brings out the fact of 
organization. 

The church, then, was Chrisfs organisation. 

In the preaching of his gospel, the selection of his apos- 
tles, the winning of his first disciples, and the gift of the 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 21 

Holy Spirit, he had laid the whole foundation for this 
very institution. And when he died on the cross it was 
that this institution might be perfected. Hence Paul 
writes to the Ephesians : *' Christ also loved the church, 
and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and 
cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that 
he might present it to himself a glorious church, not 
having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it 
should be holy and without blemish." And of the same 
Christ the apostle wrote again : " He gave some to be 
apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ; and 
some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the 
saints, unto the work of the ministering, unto the build- 
ing up of the body of Christ." In his Epistle to the 
Colossians he added : " And he is the head of the body, 
the church." 

These are days in which the churches are being much 
criticized; but men do well to distinguish between the 
churches of Christ's ideal and the local organizations that 
may now wear his name. The latter are full of faults; 
many of them misrepresent their Lord ; and yet the great 
underlying thought of the church is Christ's thought. 
The critic of Christ's church decries the Christ himself. 
The man or woman who says, " I see no need of asso- 
ciating myself with a church," exhibits a poor apprecia- 
tion of the institution of which Paul expressly says, 
" Christ gave himself," the institution which he purchased 
by his own blood, planted in the earth by his own pierced 
hands, and loves to-day with all the wealth of his infinite 
heart! The very relation which Christ sustained to the 
apostles and disciples who made up this old First Church 
at Jerusalem makes it a sample for all successors. 

His Spirit determined its fraternity. 

" The Lord added to the church day by day those that 
were saved." It must have seemed to the inhabitants 



22 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

of Jerusalem a novel thing — this organization of a frater- 
nity that was no respecter of persons. The strangest 
sight that had ever greeted their eyes was that of a 
learned and honored scribe and a healed leper — the social 
outcast — striking hands ; that of Joseph of Arimathea, the 
rich man, and John, the poverty-stricken fisherman, join- 
ing in intimate fellowship ; that of Nicodemus, the schol- 
ar, and Peter, the unlearned, finding each for the other 
fraternity. They could scarce understand it all. And 
in truth there is but one explanation. John Watson, in 
" The Mind of the Master,'* discloses that explanation : 
" Jesus realized that the tie which binds men together in 
life is not forged in the intellect, but in the heart. . . 
He believed it possible to bind men to their fellows on 
the one condition that they were first bound fast to him ; 
he made himself the center of eleven men, each an in- 
dependent unit; he sent through their hearts the electric 
flash of his love and they became one. It was an experi- 
ment on a small scale. It proved a principle that has no 
limits. Unity is possible wherever the current of love 
runs from Christ's heart, through human hearts, and 
back to Christ again." 

In the " Life of Moody " one writer tells his experi- 
ence in attending what is known as " The Moody Church." 
At the midweek prayer-meeting he heard an unlettered 
man tell his happiness in Christ Jesus; he was followed 
by a young man who thanked God that the prayers 
of the people of that church, put up the week before in 
behalf of his sick mother, had prevailed, and that she had 
been restored to health. No sooner did he resign the floor 
than a reformed drunkard arose to relate how God had 
saved him from his cups; at once, on his having taken 
a seat, a beautiful, cultured woman testified, with radiant 
face, to having received the gift of the Holy Spirit for 
service; at the dying away of her voice, an ignorant but 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 23 

happy colored woman arose with her hallelujahs. The 
writer remarked : " I thought, although it is twenty-eight 
years since Moody was pastor of the church, his spirit 
dominates it still, and makes these people of diverse 
opinions, unequal social standing, and great variety of 
home life, one." But the writer was mistaken. It was 
not Moody's spirit that dominated there, but Christ's, 
whose love cements men, and makes brethren of all them 
that share in it. 

In a man's home it is his right to choose his friends, 
and it is natural that the choice should be made upon a 
basis of mutual admiration. In society the same right 
obtains. But to insist upon carrying that principle into 
the church of Jesus Christ is to depart absolutely from 
the spirit of the primitive institution and bring death 
to the organized body by a fresh crucifixion of its Head. 
E. J. Hardy, in an extended article on *' Social Ambition " 
once related how a Boston millionaire, who had begun 
life as a poor boy, gave a housewarming on entering his 
new mansion. He did not invite his own brother, a poor 
man. In the course of the evening a mutual friend said 
to the millionaire : " I don't see your brother present. 
I hope he is not ill." " No," replied the fortune- favored 
man, " in society we must draw the line somewhere." 
Thereupon Hardy commented in severe strictures upon 
that social ambition which destroys even natural affec- 
tion. His comment was not without good occasion. How- 
ever, has it not occurred to us that such a man acts in 
perfect consonance with the whole constitution of worldly 
society, acts, in fact, in accord with your conduct and 
mine in choosing our social friends, and that he is, there- 
fore, in no respect as guilty as he who seeks to carry the 
same idea into the church of God? In society we are 
privileged to have what friends we will ; but in the church 
of God every man saved by the blood is made our brother; 
c 



24 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

every woman cleansed in its crimson flood becomes our 
sister; and the relationship is as much superior to that 
which binds the members of a single house as God is 
superior to an earthly father, as grace is beyond flesh 
and blood. Such, at least, is suggested in this sample — 
the primitive church. 

Descending again into this mine of Scripture we dis- 
cover 

THE CONDITION OF CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP 

" And the Lord added to them day by day those that 
were saved." 

Only the saved were privileged membership in the 
primitive church. 

The kingdom of God and the organized body of be- 
lievers called the church are not employed in Scripture as 
interchangeable terms, but it is everywhere made evident 
that the man who has not met the condition of member- 
ship in the former is also without that demanded by the 
latter. Some men seem to think that good morals are all 
that any church has the right to demand; but in con- 
versation with Nicodemus, Christ declared the only con- 
dition of entrance into his kingdom, " Ye must be born 
again." Later he makes clear his meaning by saying to 
Nicodemus : " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, 
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Now to 
be born of the flesh makes one a member of an earthly 
house ; but to be a member of the house of God one must 
be begotten of the Holy Ghost. 

Birth, therefore, is fundamental in the family relation- 
ship, sanguine or spiritual. One's children may be good 
or bad ; they may grow up to honor him or bring him to 
dishonor ; but they remain his children, and it can never 
be ordered otherwise ; their birth in the flesh settles that 
forevermore; and the man or woman who is born of the 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 2^ 

Spirit belongs forever to the family of God. Their be- 
havior may be such as to disinherit them, and to forfeit 
much of the fortune which their Father has kindly pro- 
vided for them, but the family relationship remains un- 
broken. The one question therefore for every man who 
seeks a place in the church is formed already by the con- 
duct of this primitive institution, " Is he begotten of the 
Spirit, born from above ? " It may be profitable to ask 
many other questions. We interrogate men and women 
on their views of doctrine, their ideas of church gov- 
ernment, their intentions of faithful service, their fidelity 
to the word, their custom of prayer, their disposition to 
personal work, etc., etc. All of these questions are legiti- 
mate; all of them are helpful; but all of them are asked 
in vain unless one can answer affirmatively the questions, 
*' Are you saved? " '' Do you belong to the blood-bought 
throng?" "Are you conscious of having been brought 
by the grace of God into the company of the redeemed? " 
These points clearly settled, it remains for one to take 
only the divinely appointed steps of public profession — 
baptism and formal reception. 

It is not unusual to meet with a new convert who 
is almost wholly ignorant of the word of God, who enter- 
tains the crudest ideas of what the church is and for 
what it stands. Yet, if only it is clear that the heart has 
been surrendered, that Christ has come into the life, 
the condition of church-membership is met, and there 
is laid upon the organized body of believers the obliga- 
tion of taking this weak child and giving him the milk 
and meat of the word until he shall be strong. What 
the mother is to the infant, what the school is to the 
untutored, what the hospital is to the convalescent, that 
the church of God must be to the Spirit-born in evolving 
life, imparting wisdom, and aiding into the perfect 
strength that is in Christ. 



26 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

The truly saved will covet church-membership. 

While of these primitive disciples it is said, " The 
Lord added to them day by day those that were saved," 
we are not to suppose a coercion. The Lord added them, 
not by any outward force, but by the inner craving for fel- 
lowship. By this we may '' know that we have passed 
from death unto life, because we love the brethren." 
The converts of the twentieth century respond to the 
same test to which those of the first were subjected. The 
little country church in which the writer was converted 
was far from being a model institution. Though pos- 
sessed of much wealth, it paid its pastor a salary of four 
hundred dollars per annum; to missions it gave a mere 
pittance ; and, as already suggested in the previous chapter, 
it never expected a soul to be saved out of season. Many 
of the brethren chewed or smoked — some of the sisters 
did the same — and not a few of them regarded it no sin 
to keep their demijohns. The church was also quite often 
disturbed by internal dissensions, and neighborhood tat- 
tling was among its sins. Yet when Christ came into 
the convert's life and heart a new-born love for all these 
brethren was found as he listened to them at prayer 
or joined with them in the service of song. He believed 
them to be God's people, and to him they were exceeding 
precious. In all the blessed years which have rolled by 
since those days, few hours have seemed more sweet in 
experience or more precious in memory, than that in 
which the pastor of the village church gave his hand, and, 
as the writer believes, with the heart welcomed him into 
the fellowship of the organized body, made up of those 
who had their faults, even conspicuous faults, and yet 
who were doubtless, in the mighty majority, God's men 
and God's women. 

Organization divinely ordained, and a membership re- 
generated by the Holy Ghost, makes easily possible 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 2.^ 



THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

In this primitive church accessions occurred every day. 
" And the Lord added unto them day by day those that 
were saved." A thousand pities that the present-day 
church has so far departed from its divinely appointed 
sample ! To come into the experience of this primitive in- 
stitution v^ould be to excite the suspicions of devout men 
and women. When, years ago, the Grace Temple Church, 
Philadelphia, enjoyed a long period of time wherein it 
received an average of seven accessions a week — a soul 
a day — it became the subject of much comment by press 
and people and pastors, not all of which was favorable. 
This work was spoken of as " spasmodic," " sensational." 
People called in question the methods of its pastor, 
prophesied its eventual collapse, etc. When a friend 
had heard of the experience of the Third Baptist Church 
of Owensboro, Ky., into the membership of which Dr. 
Fred Hale had welcomed eight hundred and six in three 
years and a half, he remarked : " Well, I don't know, I 
wonder if they are all genuine converts?-' To-day the 
success attending Mark Matthews' work in Seattle excites 
the suspicion of certain wise men. Oh, to have come 
upon such deadness that even good people no longer 
look for many to be saved! Oh, to have fallen upon a 
period when the church that is fruitless half receives our 
commendation and the pastor is put forth on many public 
occasions to deliver addresses on " Christian Culture " ; 
while the exceptional institution that is fruitful is made 
the subject of our suspicions and of our criticism! Oh, 
to have been inveigled into an attitude that opposes the 
very methods of the institution whose members received 
their education at the feet of Jesus, and whose organiza- 
tion was effected by none other than the Holy Ghost him- 
self. Into that institution three thousand went in one 



28 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

day. That the growth was rapid after that day is evident 
from the fact that when the Jews laid hands on some of 
the apostles and put them in hold^ it is said : " Howbeit 
many of them which heard the word believed; and the 
number of the men was about five thousand." 

When on one occasion our Methodist brethren ap- 
pointed a wise and judicious commission to investigate 
the causes of the decline which had characterized two suc- 
cessive years, the commission found reason for its exist- 
ence, and its findings were words of wisdom containing 
clarion calls to greater expectation from the Lord, and 
greater fidelity to him and his word! Some time ago a 
correspondent in one of our Baptist papers said : " We 
do not give an hour as formerly to the reading of the 
letters from the churches, but print a brief digest of 
them, and put that into the hands of all present. The 
figures as reported are not inspiring reading. They do 
not lift up their voice and cry aloud. It would be well 
if they did. A net gain of about thirty-four in an asso- 
ciation of five thousand five hundred church-members; 
and if all the church rolls were thoroughly revised, the 
net decrease would no doubt run up into the hundreds — 
this is not aggressive Christianity. And the fact that 
other denominations are making like reports is small 
comfort. Another association, comprising several of our 
largest churches, confesses to a net loss of one hundred 
and thirty for the year." And then the writer remarked : 
" The best token apparent is the deep solicitude felt by the 
pastors and their trusted helpers." Solicitude! The 
word is too weak. Sorrow, we should feel ; bitterness, we 
should know; agony of spirit! Importunate prayer 
should characterize us, better appointments should enlist 
our thought until the whole condition is changed, and this 
sample church of the first century finds worthy successors 
in the churches of the twentieth century. 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 2g 

The spirit of conquest was in the church of the first 
century. Why should not the same spirit characterize the 
church of the twentieth century ? Oh, to witness the hour 
when the local institution wearing His great name, and 
now paralyzed in its powers, struggling oft with the 
solitary question of how to raise enough money, from 
within and without, by means fair and foul, to pay its 
current expenses — comes into a Pentecost, and has added 
to its membership day by day those that are saved ! 

Thompson tells us that at the close of the Prussian war 
of 1866 the triumphant army of Prussia came to Berlin 
for a reception of welcome. As each regiment approached 
the city gate from the Thiergarten it was halted by a 
choir demanding by what right it would enter the city. 
The regiment replied in a song, reciting the battles it had 
fought, the victories it had won. Then came a welcome 
from the choir, " Enter into the city." And so the next 
came up reciting its deeds ; and another and another, each- 
challenged and welcomed. They marched up the Linden 
between the rows of captured cannon, with the banners 
they had borne and the banners they had taken, and they 
saluted the statue of grand old Frederick — the creator of 
Prussia. 

Beloved, when at last we shall come into the presence 
of the Creator of the universe, and of that Christ who 
died for us, what we shall be able to recite by way of vic- 
tories won in his name will depend upon what we did yes- 
terday, what we are doing to-day, and what we shall do 
to-morrow as individuals and as churches. God grant us 
to be faithful that we may be fruitful ! 



THE APOSTOLIC SPIRIT AND THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER III 

THE APOSTOLIC SPIRIT AND THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

IT is doubtful whether there is a better way of discover- 
ing the secret of success in the primitive church than 
by studying the spirit of one of its most efficient apostles. 
Confessedly Paul was the peerless soul-winner of the first 
century, or at most, Peter alone shared with him that 
distinction. There is a sentence in one of Paul's epistles 
which reveals the secret of his success, so far, at least, as 
that success depended upon the apostle himself. It reads 
after this manner : "I am become all things to all men, 
that I may by all means save some." These words un- 
cover the springs of the great soul-winner's life of labor, 
and privilege us to look into his very heart of hearts to 
behold the controlling passion of an apostle's life. What 
wonder that he never failed to effect a revival ! A notable 
and most worthy writer recently declared concerning his 
visit to Athens : " Paul failed here. Some mocked him, 
but others said, * We will hear thee again in this matter,' 
and thereby dismissed him with civility, but without 
conviction, and so Paul departed from among them." 
But let it be remembered that the text does not conclude 
with Acts 17 : 33. Another verse is added to make 
the history of Paul's work at Athens complete; it reads 
after this manner : *' Certain men clave unto him, and be- 
lieved : among the which also was Dionysius the Areopa- 
gite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with 
them." The great apostle had no part or lot with the 
man who excuses the barren condition of his church on 
the ground of " laboring under difficult circumstances," of 

33 



34 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

being " located in a hard field," etc., etc. The apostle 
found God's promise, ** My word shall not return unto me 
void," made good under all circumstances. And while 
his success at some points was greater than at others 
he found none, not even the dreary island of Malta, or 
the prison at Rome, where he could not by preaching 
and personal work win men to God. Is it not so now 
with a man or church animated by the spirit of this 
sentence : " I am become all things to all men, that I 
may by all means save some " ? 

A SPLENDID ENTHUSIASM 

This speech indicates enthusiasm. 

It is the language of one whose whole life was ablaze 
with the business of soul-winning. Some conservative 
saints seek to brand their aggressive fellows with a sort 
of insanity by saying, "Oh, they are enthusiasts!" It 
is, in fact, a compliment akin to that paid to the early 
believers when, at Antioch, they were first called " Chris- 
tians." The derivation of the word *' enthusiast " is 
" God-inspired," and he is honored indeed who can wear 
that name well. It took an enthusiast to be an apostle 
of the first Christian conquests — they charged that great 
apostle himself with madness. Enthusiasm saved Flor- 
ence from the spiritual death and political oppression 
of the Medici sovereignty. But men believed Savona- 
rola half insane. Martin Luther was an enthusiast, 
or he never could have wrought a reformation against 
a prostitute and priest-ridden church. But for Wen- 
dell Phillips— the agitator, the enthusiast — ^the black blot 
of American slavery might still be staining our South- 
land. Christ was the greatest enthusiast of the centuries, 
and slow folks thought him beside himself. The pity 
of the present is that so few Christians, and even fewer 
churches, are ever chargeable with this spirit. Doctor 



THE APOSTOLIC SPIRIT 35 

Strong, in " The New Era," declared that in 189 1 it took 
on an average fourteen Christians in a large and influen- 
tial denomination a whole year to win one soul to Christ ; 
in another, it took seventeen ; and in a third, twenty-two 
were required for this conquest. Surely these denomina- 
tions are so well balanced, so sanely sane, that they have 
felt little need of the spirit which indwelt the great apostle 
Paul ! They have mocked that which he made the motto 
of his life, and all men know the result. 

THE ESSENTIAL WORK 

Again, this sentence emphasises soul-saving as his 
essential work. 

Other things are important; this thing is absolutely 
necessary. It is important that men be fed; it is im- 
portant that women and children be clothed; it is im- 
portant that the sanitary condition of homes be studied 
and improved ; it is important that sociological reforms be 
effected; it is important that free education be provided, 
and its value properly impressed. But the indispensable 
thing is that the soul be saved. Lazarus died hungry, but 
the life of Lazarus was an eminent success. Tom Lee 
was educated in an English University, but, with a soul 
enslaved, he was foredoomed. Robert G. Ingersoll was 
brought up in good society and accorded the best advan- 
tages of the nineteenth century, but these could not save 
him from profanity, tippling, and infidelity. 

When life is over and we come into the presence of 
God, one may be a Gladstone for intellect, another a 
Spurgeon for eloquence, a third a Rockefeller for wealth, 
a fourth a Stanley for explorations, a fifth a Newton 
for mathematics, a sixth a Bacon for philosophy, a 
seventh a Milton for poetry, an eighth a Beethoven for 
harmony, a ninth a Michelangelo for art, a tenth a Wes- 
ley for organization ; but if he has neglected the Master's 



36 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

commission, he will stand a pitiable pauper in spirit, while 
the humblest soul-winner will be honored with a crown, 
set with stars destined to shine forever and ever, because 
he did the essential thing and illustrated the spirit of 
the apostle in being willing to become all things to all men, 
that by all means he might save some. 

PROGRESSIVE METHODS 

Paul also provides for progressive methods, 
" All things to all men, that I may by all means save 
some." That spirit keeps the disciples of Christ forever 
up to date. It warrants a conscientious accommodation. 
Paul was not a politician, a wire-puller; but he was a 
statesman, a wise general. He left unused no lawful 
means to bring the gospel to men, and men to God. To a 
Jew he was as a Jew ; to the Gentile, as a Gentile ; to the 
weak he became as weak, that he might gain the weak; 
he rejoiced with those who did rejoice and wept with 
them that wept. The man who cannot fit himself into the 
century of which he is a part is a poor representative of 
the Christ of all centuries. Accommodation to the times 
does not involve a compromise with the devil. When 
Jesus Christ was in the world he was separate from sin- 
ners in his conduct, but he went everywhere under his 
commission. He mingled with the common people; he 
dined with the rich; he visited with the poor; he was 
often a guest in the house with noble Lazarus and spir- 
itual Mary; and they truthfully said of him on one 
occasion : *' He has gone to be a guest of a man that is 
a sinner." When Nicodemus came to him he turned 
teacher; when the hungry crowds were about to depart 
from him he provided bread and fish; when he found 
the synagogues only partially filled he took his way to 
the street and there secured a crowd — all things to all 
men, that he might by all means save some. 



THE APOSTOLIC SPIRIT 37 

You cannot go to every soul after the same manner; 
you cannot bring all men into one place that they may 
there be converted; neither can you reach all men with 
the same sermon, nor see them surrender after the same 
fashion. Paul must have a light beyond the brightness of 
the sun ; Peter needs only to hear about the man of Naza- 
reth to be brought to him ; while Lydia's heart opens to 
the word as the morning receives the light. Since these 
things are so, why should we not accommodate ourselves 
to circumstances and compel them to aid us in soul-win- 
ning? 

It is related of Uncle John Vassar that he went to visit 
a certain man who, seeing him coming, retired to the barn 
and crept into a hogshead. Uncle John proceeded to fol- 
low ; got into the hogshead with him, and stayed by until 
the man had surrendered. That would not be the best 
method in all instances. God's Spirit must have indicated 
it or Uncle John would not have used it there. When 
Truman Osborne wanted to reach De Witt Talmage he 
visited his father's house, and as he sat by the fireside 
at night, the family all about, he told in the tenderest 
way the parable of the Lost Sheep, and the depths of 
De Witt's soul were broken up, and with full purpose 
of heart he turned to God. All things to all men, that 
we may by all means save some. 

The apostle here records his disinclination to be tram- 
meled by 

TIME-HONORED CUSTOMS 

He was never chargeable with cheap sensationalism, 
nor did he think it essential to the proprieties to convert 
himself into a mere copyist. The question with him was 
not, " How have others wrought? " but " How can I best 
work?" The past should instruct us without restrain- 
ing us. We should draw upon the customs of our fathers 



38 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

for what they are worth; we should refuse to let those 
same customs run us into ruts. Thomas Dixon once said : 
" Tradition was the most constant, the most persistent, 
the most dogged, the most utterly devilish opposition the 
Master encountered. It openly attacked -him on every 
hand, and silently repulsed his teaching. Even the Samar- 
itan woman he finds armed with the ancestral bludgeon : 
' Art thou greater than our father Jacob ? Our fathers 
worshiped in this mountain.' " 

It was his departure from customs, in search of souls, 
that caused Christ to be crucified, and the same fact 
caused the great apostle Paul to be imprisoned. But with- 
out it there could have been no Christian church, no soul- 
winning endeavor worthy the name. To a certain extent 
the same is true to-day. The great soul- winners of the 
past have shaken off the shackles of overconservatism in 
methods. Witness Luther, Melancthon, Wesley, Ed- 
wards, Finney. This assertion may also be made of 
recent soul-winners — living and dead. There is a sense 
in which every successful man is an iconoclast. The 
church itself grows by iconoclasm ; its first work was to 
set aside false gods; its permanent work is to set aside 
false ideals and dispense with obsolete customs. Many of 
us remember how we came to our modern music of organ 
and soul-stirring hymns. We saw the more progressive 
fathers fight this battle to a finish and finally bring a 
majority to vote with them; but it was a conflict beside 
which Gettysburg was only a skirmish. 

The men who advocated the institutional church after 
the order of the Judson Memorial, New York; Jersey 
City Tabernacle, New Jersey; Ruggles Street, Boston; 
the Fourth Congregational, Hartford ; and others equally 
worthy to be named, found it difficult enough to effect a 
change in the customs which had obtained for decades; 
while that better institutional church represented by the 



THE APOSTOLIC SPIRIT 39 

Clarendon Street, Boston ; the Chicago Avenue, Chicago ; 
Simpson's Tabernacle, New York; and such as have em- 
phasized the importance of Bible teaching, instruction in 
missions, preparation for personal work, and the better 
filling of the professions of evangelist and pastor, have 
accomplished the same while listening to the execrations 
of those who felt called upon to champion the time- 
honored custom of four meetings a week — two for preach- 
ing, one for Sunday-school, and one for prayer-meeting ; 
and who, as Ernest Gordon put it, " accept nothing unless 
hammered on their own anvil." 

When Doctor Gordon opened the Bible Training School 
in Clarendon Street Church the denominational editor 
opened upon him a fusillade. Now that this honored 
pastor and the self-appointed press-pope both sleep in the 
dust, the former is remembered for having been emi- 
nently successful in soul-winning and saint-culture ; while 
the criticisms of the latter are written in the Books of Mis- 
takes, of the making of which there is no end. When 
the Salvation Army first appeared in the streets of our 
cities the policemen ran them in and the public ap- 
plauded — and that public had its quota of custom-made 
church-members. When the Salvation Army appears 
upon the streets now the policeman keeps order for it, 
and the public attends to its words and tosses it pennies, 
nickels, and in some instances dimes and dollars, because 
we have discovered that their method is in accord with 
the apostolic motive, " all things to all men, that we may 
by all means save some."^ 

There is a page in one of Louis Albert Banks' books 
which all pastors troubled with empty pews ought to 
study. It reads after this manner : " Last April I went 
to a charge that has been under most excellent pastors for 
many years, and still, notwithstanding all that, the church 
was comparatively empty of people, and on Sunday night 



40 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

less than a hundred people attended service, though the 
church seats about nine hundred. I was appointed in 
the middle of the week. Easter Sunday was the next 
Sunday, and there was a Sunday-school concert on the 
Sunday night ; and Sunday morning was the start-off, so 
that I had eight or ten days to look around. I had 
some large cards printed, announcing that I would preach 
a series of sermons to young men on Samson. There 
was nothing sensational about that. I took the cards 
with me. The church stands in the midst of a boarding- 
house population, right back of the old State House on 
.Beacon Hill, and all the mansions in that neighborhood 
have been given up to a boarding-house population ; and 
yet in the midst of all this the church was comparatively 
empty. I set to work myself. It was undignified for a 
city pastor, of course, but on Monday I deliberately took 
a package of those big cards under my arm and went to 
door after door of those boarding-houses, and when 
the girl came to the door, I said I would like to see the 
landlady. She would look at the cards under my arm, 
and then at my stovepipe hat, and in that perplexity 
she usually called the landlady. She came down, and 
I was invited into the parlor with her, and I sat down 
and talked. I told her about the conditions of the board- 
ing-houses on that hill; said I did not know what her 
convictions were, but I was satisfied she believed it 
would be better for these young men and women to go 
to church. With one or two exceptions the women were 
in sympathy with it in a minute, and would talk with 
me with the utmost sympathy about it ; and the result was, 
that after four days' hard work, six or eight hours a day, 
there were a hundred and fifty boarding-houses and 
restaurants on that hill that had my cards hanging in their 
dining-rooms or halls, where the people going up to get 
their meals could see them. I said I was going to preach 



THE APOSTOLIC SPIRIT 4I 

six sermons on Samson, and the result was that the next 
Sunday evening not less than eight hundred people were 
in that church." Our churches sorely need more non- 
conformist pastors. 

We maintain that, after all is said on forfeiting minis- 
terial dignity that " the uppish " may utter, it remains 
more undignified to deliver polished discourses to empty 
pews than to search boarding-houses for an audience, or 
carry a dry-goods box to a street corner where one can 
call a crowd. " All things to all men, that we may by 
all means save some.'* 

Finally, let us see in this sentence the apostle's great 

LOVE OF SOULS 

When Jesus stood at the grave of Lazarus and wept, 
it was said, " Behold, how he loved him ! " When one 
reads Romans 9 : 1-3, he is warranted in saying of 
Paul, " Behold, how he loved the Israelites ! " When he 
reads Romans i : 14, 15, he knows that, like his Master, 
this apostle is no respecter of persons, but loves Greek 
and barbarian, Jew and Gentile. He never looked upon 
the crowds, but, with his Master, he was moved with com- 
passion, seeing that they were as sheep without a shep- 
herd. The sight of their need and the knowledge of 
their sorrows compelled him to cry, " Woe is me, if I 
preach not the gospel." 

A man who is out for election to office may feign af- 
fection for every man he meets, but his smiles, his hand- 
shakings, and fawning patronage all indicate selfishness. 
A teacher asked her children, " Who loves everybody ? '* 
One bright boy replied, " My pa does, 'cause he is runnin' 
for office." But such love never survives many months. 
That may be the reason for making the political cam- 
paign season short. The man who loves his fellows 
as Christ loves them, as this great Christian apostle 



42 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

loved them, v^ill seek them not only in all ways but at 
all times. You may send the elite of London to answer 
the pitiful cry of the East End, but after a few weeks 
the unregenerate among them will have tired and re- 
turned home. But the saved, constrained by the love of 
Christ, will remain. 

It is a psychological and Christological study to see the 
efforts at reclaiming Chicago from sin. Every now and 
then a great organization has undertaken to clean up its 
plague-spot — the Black Hole — as it is called. When 
they grew discouraged and dispersed, Harry Monroe 
and the class of men he represented were pushing the 
old plan of redemption with new ardor and studying new 
methods for the sake of larger success. The Pauline 
method, " all things to all men," with the Pauline purpose, 
*' if by all means we may save some," expresses the 
Pauline grace, concerning which the apostle wrote : " If 
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have 
not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cym- 
bal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know 
all mysteries and all knowledge ; and if I have all faith, 
so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am noth- 
ing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if 
I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth 
me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love en- 
vieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth 
not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not 
provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in un- 
righteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all 
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
things. Love never faileth. . . Follow after love." 

When the individual is possessed of this grace his 
personal endeavor at soul-winning will succeed ; and when 
a church of Jesus Christ is characterized by it a perennial 
revival is its experience. 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN THE PERENNIAL 
REVIVAL 



CHi^PTER IV 

THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

THIS subject is the most important one to appear in 
the pages of this volume. The very sacredness of 
the theme of prayer makes one afraid tO' attempt its pres- 
entation ; and yet the urgent need of thought and in- 
struction concerning it is so great that one fears still 
more to be silent regarding it. 

It is a topic of which Jesus talked much ; and an exercise 
which he practised more. If one collated the words of 
Jesus he would find him insisting that prayer is a duty : 
'' Watch, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." 
His promise to prayer is most precious: "AH things 
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall 
receive." He asserts the need of forgiveness when 
praying: "When ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have 
ought against any: that your Father also which is in 
heaven may forgive your trespasses." He emphasizes 
importunity in prayer by reciting that familiar parable of 
the Judge who " feared not God, neither regarded man," 
but who was compelled to answer the widow's petition 
because she wearied him, making it an illustration of his 
statement, " Men ought always to pray, and not to faint." 
He taught concerning secret prayer : " Enter into thy 
closet, and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy 
Father which is in secret ; and thy Father, which seeth in 
secret, shall reward thee openly." He protested against 
"vain repetition" in prayer; he formulated the model 
prayer, known tO' this day by his name ; he expressed the 
sweeping promises : " Ask, and it shall be given you " ; 

45 



46 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

" If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything 
that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father 
which is in heaven"; "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my 
name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified 
in the Son; if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will 
do it." 

But, as we suggested, his instruction upon this subject 
was exceeded by his practice. He prayed for Peter that 
his faith might not fail; he prayed for his disciples that 
they might be one, as he and his Father were one; he 
prayed that they might be kept from the evil in the world ; 
he prayed for the descent of the Holy Ghost that his 
people might be empowered ; he prayed for himself in the 
Garden of Gethsemane, and upon the cross; he prayed 
for his enemies that they might be forgiven, because they 
knew not what they were doing ; he prayed for the church 
of all centuries. We read in the Old Testament that 
Daniel, at his window looking toward Jerusalem, kneeled 
and prayed morning, noon, and night; but, as F. B. 
Meyer said concerning Jesus : " Perennially from his lips 
pours out a stream of tender supplication and entreaty." 
When, therefore, we speak to this subject, hoping tO' ad- 
monish self while instructing and inspiring others, may 
the Spirit show us the intimate relation between prayer 
and perennial revival ! 

There is no verse in Scripture which adequately com- 
passes this theme. But the first and second chapters of 
the book of Acts nobly illustrate it. The first chapter 
records a great prayer-meeting ; the second, a great revival. 

THE PRAYERS OF THE PREACHER 

In the report of the prayer-meeting In the upper cham- 
ber, where the disciples were abiding stedfastly in prayer, 
Peter is the first mentioned. That fact is significant. 
Inspired Scripture reveals the mind of the Spirit. The 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER 47 

first man mentioned is the one who shall shortly stand 
forth as God's spokesman — God's minister of the gospel 
of his Son. The prayers of that meeting have a threefold 
significance for Peter the preacher. 

First, in the preparation of self. No one should read 
the outline of Peter's sermon as it is recorded in Acts 
2 : 14-40 without connecting the boldness there evinced 
with the petitioning recorded in Acts i : 14. It is equally 
evident also in the further study of this chapter that there 
were more permanent results from this prayer than could 
appear even at the time of Pentecost. Some days later, 
on trial before Annas, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and 
as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, " Peter, 
filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them," etc. The 
baptism of the Spirit for the apostle found expression 
when " tongues like as of fire " sat upon him ; but the 
secret of its reception dates to the meeting in the upper 
room. Adamson, the biographer of Joseph Parker, is au- 
thority for the statement that people frequently asked the 
great preacher if he prepared his prayers, to which he 
replied : " No, I prepare myself, not my prayers, which are 
the spontaneous utterances of the heart, as these are given 
by the Holy Ghost. I do not feel as if they were mine, and 
ofttimes I am refreshed by what passes through my soul 
and is uttered by my lips." 

It is a significant fact that when Paul was converted he 
did not first turn to preaching. " The Lord said, Ananias, 
arise, and go to the street which is called Straight, and 
inquire in the house of Judas for one named Saul, a man 
of Tarsus ; for, behold, he prayeth." Born " of the stock 
of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the 
Hebrews ; as touching the law, a Pharisee ; touching the 
righteousness which is in the law, blameless " ; brought 
up at the feet of Gamaliel; trained in the forum of legal 
eloquence, he was yet unfit to preach, even though con- 



48 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

verted. The essential preparation was lacking until it 
could be said of him, '' Behold, he prayeth." All the 
talk, all the planning, all the appointments, and all the 
expense in which we may indulge, hoping to effect a per- 
ennial revival, will fail unless the preachers of the land 
become prepared for it through prayer. 

Second, in the preparation of a sermon. Sermonizing 
is the essential business of every preacher. Professor 
Phelps wisely says to all such as choose this profession : 
** Preach, let other men govern ; preach, let other men 
organize ; preach, let other men raise funds and look after 
denominational affairs; preach, let other men hunt up 
heresies and do the theological quibbling ; preach, let other 
men ferret out scandal and try clerical delinquents; 
preach, let other men solve the problem of perpetual mo- 
tion, of which church history is full. Then make a 
straight path between your study and pulpit on which 
the grass shall never grow." But the man who prepares 
a sermon worthy to be preached does it only, and always, 
after prayer. Charles Spurgeon thinks " those sermons 
which have been prayed over are the most likely to con- 
vert people." He illustrates by adding : " I rode some time 
ago with a man who professes to work wonderful cures 
by the acids of a certain wood. After he had told me 
about his marvelous remedy I asked him, * What is there 
in that to effect such cures as you have professed to have 
wrought ? ' * Oh,' he answered, ' it is the way I prepare 
it, much more than the stuff itself, that is the secret 
of its curative properties. I rub it hard as ever I can 
for a long while, and I have so much vital electricity in 
me that I put my very life into it.' Well, well, he was 
only a quack, yet we may learn a lesson even from him, 
for the way to make sermons is to work vitality into 
them, putting your own life and the very life of God into 
them by earnest prayers." 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER 49 

The prayerless man may be an orator, a poet, an artist ; 
his utterances may be popular, and he may attain unto 
the so-called first pulpit of the land; but he is never a 
preacher. The more godly of his audience will miss the 
anointing, and though they may not know how to phrase 
the lack, they will forever feel it; and the total results 
of his ministry will more and more make it evident. If 
men are ever to say truly of any minister of the gospel, 
" Behold, he preacheth," God, who watches for bended 
knees, must first have said, " Behold, he prayeth." 

Third, in the proclamation of Scripture, There is a 
difference between the preparation of a discourse and its 
delivery; between making a sermon in the study, and 
lodging one in the hearts and consciences of auditors. If 
the change that came to Peter's character in consequence 
of that prayer-meeting was unaccountable, if the sermon 
which he delivered was a surprise to those who had 
looked upon him as an unlearned and ignorant man, a still 
greater surprise existed in the manner of his delivery. 
His words glowed, and godless men were scorched in 
their consciences as they listened to him. Such a result 
always bespeaks a secret. The auditors of Peter and 
John discovered it, for we read that, " Perceiving that 
they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; 
and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with 
Jesus." How the life of Samuel Rutherford illustrates 
this thought ! We are told : " During his ministry at An- 
woth it was his custom to spend hours at a time in a 
little wood near the manse, seeking, and undoubtedly 
enjoying, a direct communication with Christ. He would 
pace up and down in the exercise of prayer; he would 
wrestle and toil until the heavy veil grew thin, and the 
person of his Lord was manifestly before him. The con- 
sequence was that when he appeared in the pulpit on 
Sundays the people were overawed with the sense of 



50 ' THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

Christ being in the preacher. It was Christ's face they 
saw beaming on them in the face of their pastor, and his 
tones thrilled with the power of the voice which once 
spoke on earth as ' never man spake.' " He had learned 
the secret of preaching. He had been with Jesus in 
prayer. And in the moment when he stood forth to 
speak to the people, Jesus had made good the promise, 
" The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he shall teach you all things and bring to your 
remembrance all that I said unto you." 

Some years ago an English paper referred to a great 
sermon which had been preached by Bishop Simpson 
in Memorial Hall, London. It seems that for some time 
the bishop went on in a calm, quiet way; but as he 
approached the end of his discourse there was an occa- 
sion to picture the death of Christ on the cross, as that 
death related itself to the atonement for the sins of the 
world. Increasing in fervor to a certain point in the dis- 
course, he suddenly stopped, as if laden with an im- 
measurable burden, and then, rising to his full height, 
seemed to throw it from him, suiting to the action the 
words, " How far ? ' As far as the east is distant from 
the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from 
us.' " The effect was overwhelming. The whole assembly 
was brought suddenly to its feet by the excitement, and 
it was several moments before, one by one, they sank back 
into their seats. A professor of elocution present was 
asked by a friend what he thought of the bishop's elocu- 
tion. " Elocution ! " he replied ; " that man doesn't want 
elocution ; he has the Holy Ghost ! " Doubtless ! But 
God has never yet imparted his Spirit to a prayerless 
preacher. Ah, brethren of the ministry, when conscious 
of the great need of self -preparation, let us pray. When 
in the preparation of a sermon, let us pray. And when 
we stand forth to proclaim the eternal truths of Scrip- 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER 5 1 

tare, let us pray. A perennial revival will never come to 
this country until its preachers have betaken themselves 
to earnest, believing, importunate, agonizing prayer. 

THE PRAYERS OF THE PERSONAL WORKER 

This second chapter of Acts contains a single verse in 
illustration of the value of personal work: "How hear 
we every man in our language, wherein we were born ? " 
When Parthians, Medes, Elamites, dwellers in Mesopota- 
mia, in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, in 
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, in the parts of Libya 
about Cyrene, and sojourners from Rome, both Jews and 
proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, heard every man in 
his own tongue the mighty works of God, the church 
reached the zenith of her personal endeavor; and the 
world witnessed such personal work as it has seldom or 
never since seen. One feels led, therefore, to study the 
record sharply that he may discover the mystery of mak- 
ing an evangelist of every evangelical. To do that would 
be to realize the wish of Moses, " Would God that the 
Lord's people were prophets every one," and bring in, 
instantly, a perennial revival. It may not be possible 
to name all the elements that entered into this acme of 
private ministry. But, remembering the prayer-meeting 
which preceded it, is it not fairly certain that some things 
were asked for and received in that upper room ? 

The first request would be for endiiement. In the mo- 
ment preceding his ascension Jesus had said : " Ye shall 
receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: 
and ye shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all 
Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
earth." How natural that they should pray for the ful- 
filment of that promise ! Power is the *' worldlian's " 
lust; it ought to be the Christian's cupidity also. But as 
certainly as the man of flesh lusts for physical, social, in- 



52 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

tellectual, and political power, so should the child of God 
covet spiritual supremacy and seek it through prayer. 
Petition seems to sustain much the same relation to man 
on the one side, and the Holy Ghost on the other, that 
the trolley-pole sustains to the car-wheel on the one 
side, and the mighty current of electricity flowing through 
the line on the other. It connects helpless need with in- 
finite energy. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson is scripturally war- 
ranted in saying : " Prayer not only puts us in touch 
with God, but imparts to us his power. It is the touch 
which brings virtue out of him. . . We see men of prayer 
quietly achieving results of the most surprising char- 
acter." What is the explanation? Why is it that one's 
neighbor without greater talents and sometimes with little 
more apparent consecration seldom goes after one of his 
fellows, but, like Andrew of old, he brings him to Jesus, 
until the saved, set to his credit, are scores ; while another 
professed follower of Jesus pleads his cause in vain? 
Is it not because the first has learned how to claim the 
promise of the Father, and tarry for it until endued with 
power from on high? 

One morning not long since an organist was in his 
place betimes; the organ was there in its splendid pro- 
portions and appearance ; the pedals were intact, and the 
stops worked; but when the time came for the prelude 
the fingers were on the keys and the pipes were silent. 
Investigation proved that the motor was out of order. In 
vain shall we attempt the service of God except he breathe 
into us his own Spirit. Therein is the source of power. 

They -doubtless prayed for direction. The ten days 
preceding Pentecost was a period which prompted such 
a prayer. They were no longer in doubt as to the deity 
of Jesus, for he was risen from the dead, and before their 
own eyes had ascended into heaven. They were no longer 
tempted to apostasy. But without his presence how sore 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER 53 

their need to have the Holy Spirit come and direct the"r 
endeavors ! Was he not to be their Guide, their Teacher r 
Was he not to tell them what they should say and what 
they should do? The marvel of his administration ap- 
pears when the forces of this small company are so dis- 
posed as to reach every man of the multitude visiting their 
vicinity. Unquestionably the same Holy Ghost is to- 
day just as good a Guide, and of his leadership the per- 
sonal worker is in just as sore need. To ask his leader- 
ship, and then yield oneself unreservedly to the same, is 
to see souls come to God. 

Some years ago we read the statement of a man who, 
as he walked down the streets of a certain city in Illinois 
on Sunday afternoon, suddenly stopped, and said to the 
Methodist minister at his side: 'T think I ought to go 
and see Mr. — < — , for I have had him in mind all of to- 
day and the most of last night. But, then," he added, 
" I don't know why I should go. The man seldom comes 
to church and seems perfectly indifferent." A block 
more, and he said again : " Somehow I cannot get that 
man's face out of my mind. What would you do about 
it?" The minister wisely answered, "When God says, 
' Go,' it is dangerous to delay or neglect." Turning about, 
he was soon at the man's door, and entering his house he 
found him in tears, and heard from his lips : " Oh, I am 
so glad you have come. Tell me how I may be saved." 
It was the work of only a few minutes, as with Philip 
teaching the eunuch, and the man was ready for baptism 
in the name of the Lord. Prayer for the Holy Spirit's 
direction will aid every personal worker's contribution to 
a perennial revival. 

Again, they must have pleaded for the individual. No 
man can read the first chapter of John, and, remembering 
that the same men who wrought there were at work in the 
second chapter of Acts, doubt that they had friends and 



54 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

relatives for whom they prayed in that upper room. And 
what Christian can call into question the efficacy of prayer 
in inclining men to come to Christ? How often you 
have gone to see a man without having prayed for him ! 
How seldom you have had any success with such an one ! 
How seldom have you gone to see a man after having 
prayed for him earnestly and long, to find your visit 
in vain ! Cortland Myers, in his booklet, " The New 
Evangelism," relates having visited a Brooklyn physician 
in the name of Jesus, to be met by the kindly expression : 
" I am glad you have come, because I have been waiting 
for you or some man like you to lead me into the light. I 
have been honestly searching for the truth, and was never 
so anxious to find it as at this moment. I have been 
skeptical, but I am changing, and I want some one to show 
me the way to Christ and salvation." Mr. Myers says : 
" I never saw such an open heart nor such an honest 
seeker. He found peace and pardon, and with his own 
son, whom I afterward led to Christ, he wished to be 
baptized into the membership of the church. He had 
heard me preach occasionally for years, but I was too far 
away. Alone in that private office was the place of 
power." 

But we insist that Myers was mistaken. The place of 
power was where Myers bent the knee, and lifted the 
heart to God, in his home, or study, ere he started to this 
physician's office. All power belongeth unto Him ; let us 
pray! 

THE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE 

We employ " the people " here as synonymous with 
" the church." It is our custom to speak of the " pulpit " 
and of " the people," meaning by the latter the organized 
body of baptized believers. The record in Acts 2 : 5-13 
is of work wrought without organization. The disciples 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER 55 

had not yet been " added together"; while the report of 
work in Acts 2 : 41-47 belongs to the credit of the church. 
Three thousand souls, including disciples who had sat at 
the feet of Jesus and those who had accepted him in an- 
swer to Pentecostal preaching, federated their forces and 
began their corporate work. It is intensely interesting to 
study the results thereof, and see what many people who 
" continue stedfastly in prayer " can accomplish by their 
united endeavor. 

Think first of the effect upon Christian character. The 
record shows this company to have been men and women 
knowing the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of 
wisdom ; their apostles working wonders ; their whole as- 
sembly evincing an utter abandon in benevolence ; holding 
daily meetings in the temple, receiving even their very 
food with gladness and singleness of heart, and having 
favor with all the people. Oh, for a season of earnest, 
anxious prayer on the part of God's people concerning 
the subject of Christian character! The average church 
can enjoy no revival because her membership is of such 
a motley character. The mixed multitude are in it, men 
and women who, by practice at least, repudiate the doc- 
trine of being born from above, and who, with the Johan- 
nine disciples at Ephesus, would be compelled to say, 
" We have not so much as heard whether there be any 
Holy Ghost." When the organizers of progressive euchre 
clubs, the chief patrons of the dance, the devotees of the 
theater, the breakers of the Sabbath, are in the church 
in any considerable numbers, a perennial revival is im- 
possible. And when men and women, whose sins may not 
so much as be mentioned in better assemblies, cloak their 
conduct under the same membership, what prospect ? To 
expect a revival in an assembly made up of saints and 
sinners is to ask God's approval upon iniquitous practices, 
and the prayer is in vain. 

E 



56 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

David Brainerd, that godly apostle to the Indians, had 
many occasions of mourning the work of his wards. At 
the Forks of the Delaware he writes : " I was greatly 
oppressed with guilt and shame this morning. . . About 
nine o'clock I withdrew to the woods for prayer, but had 
not much comfort. Toward night my burden, respecting 
my work among the Indians, began to increase much and 
was aggravated by hearing sundry things that looked very 
discouraging ; in particular, that they intended to meet to- 
gether next day for an idolatrous feast and dance. Then 
I began to be in anguish. I thought I must, in conscience, 
go and endeavor to break them up. . . However, I with- 
drew for prayer, hoping for strength from above. . . I 
was in such anguish and pleaded with sO' much earnest- 
ness and importunity that when I rose from my knees 
I felt extremely weak and overcome. I could scarcely 
walk straight. My joints were loosened. The sweat ran 
down my face and body, and nature seemed as if it would 
dissolve. So far as I could judge I was wholly free from 
selfish ends in my fervent supplications for the poor In- 
dians. I knew they were met together to worship devils 
and not God. And this made me cry earnestly that God 
would now appear and help me in my attempts to break 
up this idolatrous meeting." That is the prayer for 
God's people to make now. These Indians have their 
successors in every assembly — men and women who walk 
disorderly, who work iniquity, who are to the church as 
Achan was to the camp. Their regeneration, or reform, 
is essential to the coming of a revival. 

Somehow or other the situation in the churches of our 
section has evinced enough of this to teach some of the 
saints of God the meaning of Paul's words : " I say the 
truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness 
with me in the Holy Ghost, that I have great sorrow and 
unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish that I 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER 57 

myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's 
sake." 

But this agony must increase with tho^e who feel it, 
and extend to multitudes who^ as yet, have not given it 
sufficient consideration, before God's answer can come and 
the character of church-membership be so transformed 
as to clear the way for a perennial revival. 

Think again of the effect in making converts to Christ, 
That is a glorious report : " And the Lord added to them 
day by day those that were saved." The churches desire 
the return of such a revival. Then, as the people thereof, 
we must pray. The conditions of an open heaven have 
not changed much in many centuries. When Solomon 
had uttered his prayer at the dedication of the temple, 
the Lord appeared by night, and said unto him : " I have 
heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself 
for an house of sacrifice. If I shut up heaven that there 
be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the 
land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my 
people, which are called by my name, shall humble them- 
selves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their 
wicked ways ; then will I hear from heaven, and will for- 
give their sin, and will heal their land." 

Charles Spurgeon affirmed the fact that soul-winning 
in his great Tabernacle was easy, because there was an 
earnest spirit of prayer among the people, and because so 
many of them were on the watch for souls. He only 
declared that which is known to be true in every temple 
where men turn to God in considerable numbers. Dr. 
Elmore Harris assigned the success in soul-winning which 
characterized his pastorate in Walmer Road to a church 
whose members were priests unto God. A. C. Dixon, 
a man mightily blessed of God in soul- winning, at Winona 
Lake Assembly, related the story of having gone to a 
country schoolhouse on a rainy afternoon to speak to 



58 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

seven men. At the close of the service two of them 
earnestly sought salvation. He consented to preach at 
night. The meetings were continued three or four weeks, 
and about seventy-five were saved. It seemed to Dixon, 
at first, a case of Eternal Sovereignty, in which the Lord 
had just come and done the work without requiring peti- 
tion. But he shortly learned that a school-teacher, resid- 
ing sixty miles away on the coast, had dismissed her 
school a half-hour earlier that she might have more time 
to spend, upon her knees, in pleading for this very neigh- 
borhood. Given many such petitioners in a church, and 
who could count the converts ? Given many such petition- 
ers in a church, and who does not know that a perennial 
revival will result ? 

Finally, think again of the effect of such prayers on 
church extension. Trace the men and women of that 
" upper room " meeting ! They went everywhere preach- 
ing the word and witnessing salvation. Travel the coun- 
try over, and you will find that every church, knowing 
how to pray so' as to enjoy a perennial revival, adopts 
the watchword of the Student Volunteer movement, " The 
evangelization of the world in this generation." These 
churches may not all work along the same lines. When 
Clarendon Street, under Gordon, kept the waters of its 
pool busy with baptisms, it poured its men and money 
into India, China, Japan, Africa, and the isles. The 
Chicago Avenue, or Moody, Church has not played so 
conspicuous a part in foreign missions, but has been more 
successful in the whole cause of church extension. By 
multiplied meetings, by the training of young men and 
women for successful Christian service, by the establish- 
ment of a Bible school, by emphasis upon evangelism, this 
institution has sent its waves of influence to the Atlantic 
and to the Pacific seaboards, through Canada and Mexico ; 
and by its direct agents has taken to the Old World both 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER 59 

of its peerless revivals of the nineteenth and twentieth 
centuries, the former under Moody, and the latter under 
Torrey. There are people who seem to get a surfeit of 
pleasure out of the statistics which show that, since 
Carey baptized his first convert, the march of missions 
has been unimpeded, until now the converts from heathen- 
ism approach two million church-members. And there 
are those who, in order tO' encourage themselves still 
further, compare the growth of the churches in a specific 
country with the increase of population, showing a per- 
centage in favor of Christ and his cause. But after all 
juggling with figures is finished, it remains a fact that on 
the basis of past progress the whole world cciuld never 
be brought to Christ. 

Fellow workmen ! Are not God's promises big with a 
better prospect? Let us gO' upon our knees and claim 
them by the prayer of faith, and offer ourselves to the 
Son of God for such service as would mean " the evan- 
gelization of the world in this generation," and the bring- 
ing back of the KING. 



THE ENDUEMENT OF POWER AND THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER V 

THE ENDUEMENT OF POWER AND THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

WE once visited in a family where every child in the 
house was afflicted, severely afflicted. The parents, 
beautiful people, bore their affliction with the greatest 
patience and fortitude. And yet beneath the outward 
serenity there must have been a continual sorrow, which, 
like the sorrow of Miriam, in " The Marble Faun," was 
unseen, but always flowing on. The mother in this 
home said, " I have not lost my faith that my children 
will yet be made whole." 

One other family with which we are acquainted is far 
more afflicted; and, strange to say, this is the family of 
God. Deafness, dumbness, and paralysis of powers is the 
experience of not a few in the so-called household of 
faith. God, who' is our Father, and God, who is our 
Mother, must look down upon his own children in- 
cited always by the hope that they will all yet be made 
whole. This is the promise of the resurrection ; but will- 
ing ones need not wait that supernal hour. When Jesus 
said to the impotent man, " Wilt thou be made whole ? " 
he proposed for him a present work of grace; and ac- 
cording to the testament of God, power is the privilege 
of his saints here and now. The last words Jesus uttered 
before his ascension, words that were upon his lips when 
his feet were lifted from the ground, were these : " Ye 
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto 
the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts i : 8). Andrew 

63 



64 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

Murray once declared : " The one thing needful for the 
church of Christ, and for every member of it, is to be 
filled with the spirit of Christ. Christianity is nothing ex- 
cept as it is a ministration of the Spirit; preaching is 
nothing except as it is a demonstration of the Spirit; 
holiness is nothing except as it is the fruit of the Spirit." 
He might have added : " Life, even the life that is from 
above, is truly blessed only when enlarged by the gift of 
the Holy Ghost." 

The last words of Jesus look to this enduement, and in 
those words there are some noteworthy suggestions. 

THE PERSON OF POWER 

The Holy Ghost is the Person of power. When Jesus 
employed the language, " after that the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you," he spake of the third Person in the 
Godhead. So long as the Holy Ghost is counted " a 
breath," '' an influence," " a mysterious spell," " an in- 
definable energy,," just so long will our Christians be 
invalids and our churches weak. Our fathers were faith- 
ful in teaching justification by faith, regeneration essen- 
tial to salvation, obedience better than sacrifice, public 
profession a step to service. For all of that we should 
thank God; it is all true, all scriptural. The men, let- 
tered and unlettered, who laid those truths to the heart 
put us under the fullest obligations. But, alas, that these 
same fathers should have said so little of the Holy 
Ghost that their sons begin to preach without having dis- 
covered that the Spirit is the third Person in the Godhead. 

A doctor of divinity employs the impersonal pronoun 
in speaking of the Holy Ghost. In one of the largest of 
the ministers' conferences in this country a preacher, quite 
well known, referred to the Holy Spirit as " it." Christ 
always spoke of "him." Paul did not write to the 
Romans, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our 



THE ENDUEMENT OF POWER 65 

Spirit, that we are the children of God " — see Revised 
Version : " The Spirit himself." 

He is the Person of all power. You may have some 
difficulty to receive that truth upon first statement. You 
may be disposed to say, "The Father has power; and 
Christ has power " ; but let us never forget that this is 
the age of the Spirit. He represents Christ, and he ex- 
presses the power of God. When Christ was on earth 
he was " the power of God," and emphatically declared 
that the works he did were none other than the works 
of the Father that dwelt in him. But when he was ready 
to depart from earth, he insisted that greater works than 
these should be done because he was going and the Spirit 
was coming. He clearly expressed some of the marvels 
that should evince the ministry of the Spirit. " When he 
is come^ he will reprove the world of sin." The power of 
conviction is with the Holy Ghost. He alone convicts 
men of sin; he only can convert men from sin. To 
Nicodemus Christ said : " Except a man be born of water 
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God." 

He also declared of the Spirit that he should be the 
great Teacher of truth : " He will guide you into all 
truth." And it is only as men know the truth that they 
are free. Mr. Spurgeon reminds us that when Jesus 
Christ preached there were only a few converts unto him, 
and assigns as the reason that the Holy Spirit was not 
yet poured out. True, the Master had the Spirit without 
measure ; but on others he had not yet descended. " Re- 
member," adds Spurgeon, " that those few who were con- 
verted unto Christ, under his ministry, were not con- 
verted by Christ, but were converted by the Holy Spirit 
which rested upon him," that eternal Spirit, whose 

. . . power conveys our blessings down 
From God the Father and the Son. 



66 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

The Holy Spirit is pleased tO' impart his power to 
God's people. It is none other than a satanic suggestion 
that God is pleased to give the Holy Ghost to but few 
believers — to sample saints only. Some good Christian 
men and women speak as if it were presumption to ask 
the Holy Ghost and expect to be infilled with his power. 
But, as against that sentiment, let us remember the blessed 
words of Jesus: "If ye then, being evil, know how to 
give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that 
ask him." Fathers will understand how freely God grants 
the enduement for which we pray. When fathers find 
their children in need and know that a gift will be for 
their good, how gladly they bestow ; and when God finds 
a man or woman really fitted for the infilling of the 
Spirit, he has more pleasure in granting it than the best 
of us ever knew in buying shoes, coats, and provisions for 
our loved little ones. Do you believe it ? To doubt it is to 
deny his word. God help us to understand that it is ours, 
if we will, to wear the name that old Ignatius assumed. 
That noble martyr called himself Theophoros, or " God- 
bearer," " because," said he, " I bear about with me the 
Holy Ghost." 

THE PROMISE OF POWER 

The promise of power is definite, " Ye shall receive 
power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." 
That promise is made the more definite by repetition. In 
the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of John 
this promise is uttered in almost every possible form, as 
if Christ were attempting to stimulate the disciples to ex- 
pect and prepare for the incoming Spirit. The blessed 
day of Pentecost evinced the meaning of his words : " I 
will not leave you comfortless. I will pray the Father, 
and he will give you another Comforter, even the Spirit 



THE ENDUEMENT OF POWER 6/ 

of Truth." That this unspeakable promise was not in- 
tended for apostles only is evidenced in that, when the 
day came, he was poured out upon the entire discipleship, 
and afterward on the new converts when they were made. 

This promise was uttered under sacred circumstances. 
The last words of a man are accepted by society as having 
peculiar weight. The courts of justice take the testimony 
of the dying as not to be impugned. The fuller promises 
concerning the gift of the Holy Ghost were made after 
the shadow of the cross lay on his path. He knew his 
hour was nigh. As a father, seeing the end near at hand, 
might counsel and comfort his children, so our Saviour 
did for his disciples. The greatest point of that comfort 
was expressed in this promise, " I will send the Spirit." 
These were the last words of Jesus before ascending up 
to the right hand of God. Who shall question the speech 
of such sacred circumstances? Whatever we do with the 
philosophies of men, let us hold fast to the words of 
the Eternal One. 

This promise of power is almost an unlimited one. 
There were no select few to whom it was to come; and 
there was no certain measure beyond which it was not to 
extend. For, after all, the gift was that of the Holy 
Ghost himself — the unlimited and immeasurable One. 

F. B. Meyer reminds us that the discovery of electricity 
involves the best illustration yet born of the power of the 
Holy Ghost. He asks : " How much of it is in the world, 
and to what parts of the world is it limited ? " and an- 
swers, " Immeasurable amount, and every part of the 
world knows its presence." There is as much in the 
world now as there was when first the day and night 
were divorced, and perhaps no more. But in modern 
times many have learned about it, and have met its con- 
ditions, and have utilized it. There is more in every little 
village than it can possibly employ. It may start its 



68 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

mills, put up its telegraph lines, conduct its street-cars, 
and still not touch that wonderful thing we call " elec- 
tricity." And his reply is the argument : " So it is with 
the Holy Spirit. There is as much Holy Spirit power 
in your little church, my brother, as there is in the largest 
tabernacle in the country, ' because the Holy Ghost him- 
self is there ' ; and the mistake of your life has been 
that you never learned the law of the Holy Ghost, 
for if you had, the Holy Ghost would have come flowing 
through your life as much as through the life of a Peter 
or a John." What a church it would be with one such 
man in it; not to speak of the hundreds that God is just 
as willing to give enduement ! " Ye shall receive power, 
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Therein 
is provision for all life and energy needful to all the 
labors of a church. Should we not, therefore, reach up 
to it, touching it with the finger of faith as the trolley 
touches the wire, and, as the huge cars sweep on, so see 
our churches move forward, impelled by that resistless 
energy, the Spirit himself ? John McNeill says : " A 
Christian man came to me once, and said, ' I have been 
seeking that very blessing, sir, for over thirty years.' 
Well, brother," replied McNeill, '' it is time you got it, 
for all these years during which you have been crying, 
' Give ! give ! give ! ' God has been saying, ^ I have given. 
Take ! take ! take ! Receive ! receive ! receive ! ' " And 
God is no respecter of persons. Our failure, therefore, to 
be infilled by the Spirit is not God's fault. 

THE PURPOSE OF POWER 

" And ye shall be witnesses unto me." How that sen- 
tence dismisses much of unscriptural sentiment touching 
the Holy Spirit! It disposes of the idea that God will 
give his Spirit for the sake of your feelings or mine.' 
There are people who pray for the Holy Ghost, hoping 



THE ENDUEMENT OF POWER 69 

to receive in response an experience of spiritual ecstasy. 
They want to have the peace that passeth understanding, 
the exhilaration that comes of his infilling, and they think 
of that as the all-important thing. Joy is one of the fruits 
of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost man is the happy man. 
That splendid saint, John Flavel, speaks of his baptism 
by the Holy Ghost as bringing him " such refreshing tastes 
of heavenly joy, and such full assurances of his interest 
therein, that he utterly lost sight and sense of this world 
and all the concerns thereof." It is reported also that 
people found him wandering in the streets, asking his 
neighbors for his own name and home, while his face 
was so radiant as to make his informants afraid. Brain- 
erd speaks of his divine baptism as a " flood of divine love 
which casts out fear''; and Edwards of his infilling as 
being " swallowed up in God." But all of that is in- 
cidental; the Scriptures never suggest happiness as the 
final purpose of giving the Holy Ghost. 

Neither, indeed, is that purpose one of selfish success. 
One reason why so many of us pray for him, only to see 
our petitions unanswered, is found just here. He is not 
to be the subject of the convenience of men. Christ 
would never consent to become the temporary, or partial, 
Saviour of any man — a Saviour for the hour of tempta- 
tion only, or from the saloon, or any single sin. He is 
our Saviour altogether, or not our Saviour at all. And 
the Holy Ghost is not subject to the call of the selfish. 
One might desire him to help in winning a soul, or in the 
conduct of a series of meetings, but he is no neighbor to 
be coaxed into cooperation at your pleasure, and parted 
from when your purpose is accomplished. It is little 
less than simony to want to use the Holy Ghost as a 
politician uses an influential friend, to accomplish selfish 
purposes. Christ said, " I will pray the Father, and he 
will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with 



70 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

you forever." Unless we are willing to live with him 
in the relation of an inseparable love, he will not live 
with us at all. To illustrate : Some years since, a pastor 
wrote to one of our religious newspapers, saying : " The 
Rev. H. W. Brown has been aiding me in a meeting for 
ten days. The Holy Spirit has been present in power. 
He remains here another week, and then he goes to Cham- 
paign." Not so, beloved! If we propose to have the 
Holy Spirit with us in a series of meetings we must also 
plan to have him with us forever. Gordon says : " He is 
bestowed only upon those who are ready to devote them- 
selves utterly and irrevocably to his service." Holy 
William Grimshaw understood this ; hence his words : " I 
desire and resolve to be wholly and forever thine, blessed 
God. I most solemnly surrender myself to thee. . . In 
thy service I desire and propose to spend all my time, 
desiring thee to teach me to use every moment of it to 
thy glory and the setting forth of thy praise." From 
Peter to the last Spirit-filled man such a dedication has 
preceded the Spirit's baptism. Are we ready to make it ? 
Are we ready to say, " Fill us, O Spirit of God " ? Then 
his purpose will appear, and we shall be witnesses unto 
him. Doctor Torrey has said : " The baptism with the 
Holy Ghost is an experience always connected with testi- 
mony or service, and has primary relation tO' equipment 
or gifts for this testimony or service." (See Acts i : 5-8 ; 
2 : 4-17; 19 : 6; i Cor. 12 : 4-13.) That is the pur- 
pose — that we should save men and serve God. When 
we do the latter we accomplish the former. 

POSSESSION OF POWER 

Already we have indicated some of the conditions of this 
enduement of power. But the deeply concerned will 
desire some further words upon the subject. It is uni- 
versally conceded by students of the Scriptures, and those 



THE ENDUEMENT OF POWER 7I 

who have had experience of the Spirit's baptism, that 
self -surrender is an absolute essential. We have heard 
the story of the two strongholds, Fort Henry on the Ten- 
nessee and Fort Donaldson on the Cumberland. They 
were held for some time by the Confederates. General 
Grant and his army and a fleet of gunboats under Com- 
modore Foote proceeded against the forts. Fort Henry 
was captured. Fort Donaldson resisted strongly. After 
four days of fighting the Confederates hoisted the white 
flag and asked for terms. Then the silent general replied, 
'* No terms other than unconditional surrender." It is 
in vain for us to fly a flag of truce and plead for the in- 
filling of the Spirit except we are also ready to sur- 
render. 

Self must be surrendered — the whole self, body, soul, 
and spirit. " Yield ye yourselves unto God." " Present 
your bodies a living sacrifice." There is a story to the 
effect that a certain monk was disobedient to the laws of 
the monastery and his punishment was to be buried alive. 
He was placed standing in the grave, and when the earth 
was thrown upon his feet the Superior said to him, " Are 
you dead yet? " He answered, " No." They shoveled in 
more, until his limbs were fastened. The Superior then 
repeated the question, and the stubborn man answered, 
" I am not dead." They tossed in the dirt until it reached 
his lips and was smothering him, and then he cried out 
to the Superior : " I surrender. My will shall be thy will." 
That surrender was victory for him over death and the 
grave, and favor also with the reigning one. Man has no 
such right over his fellow, but God the Father has it. 
Do we not see our way? Surrender! 

Again, surrender to serve. Some time ago a young 
woman went from a Western church to the East, an in- 
valid. She had been injured in a railroad accident. For 
a long time she was bitter about it, and even rebellious. 

F 



72 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

She had prayed for physical power, and did not become 
healed; she prayed for spiritual peace, but none came. 
Finally she made up her mind to serve God to the limit 
of her ability and leave her body and spirit to his dis- 
position. Scarcely had she begun on this course when, to 
her sweet surprise, health was suddenly given her, and 
the Holy Ghost came into her heart, and her home church 
had one of its richest blessings when she came back to it, 
and with radiant face told how great things God had done 
for her. Surrender to serve ! 

Let it be understood also that we are to serve not as 
we desire, but as God indicates. We are tempted at times 
to think that if we had been better born, better bred, more 
broadly educated, given more excellent opportunities, our 
success would have been more sure. But what is human 
success when compared to the Spirit's power for service ? 
It makes little difference about one's first birth, but much 
as to whether he is born of the Spirit. It makes little 
difference about one's social breeding, but much as to his 
spiritual culture. It makes little difference what college 
or university one attends, or at what Gamaliel's feet he 
sits, but much as to whether he is instructed by the Holy 
Ghost. In a Kentucky college there was a young man 
who was regarded a poor student. He was the subject 
of many a smile on the part of his intellectual superiors ; 
he was a constant trial to the patience of his learned pro- 
fessors, and often he was a chagrin to himself. But he 
was surrendered to God tO' do whatever God said, and 
wherever he went revivals were in his wake. He was 
able to win more men to Christ than the combined Chris- 
tian faculty and two hundred students, though many of 
the latter were candidates for the ministry. Was he not 
the successful man of that school? It is thirty-five 
years now since he left it, and he has gone on adding stars 
to his crown, for God is with him. 



THE ENDUEMENT OF POWER 73 

Beloved, whatever our privileges in life, whatever our 
station, whatever our favored circumstances, we might 
well covet that man's experience. To raise up a gen- 
eration of those who know the third Person of the 
Godhead, who appropriate the promises of his infilling, 
who appreciate the purpose of his power, who possess that 
enduement — this is to see a perennial revival. 

The strong man's strength to toil for Christ, 

The fervent preacher's skill, 
I sometimes wish ; but better far 

To be just what God will. 

No service in itself is small, 

None great, though earth it fill: 
But that is small that seeks its own. 

And great that seeks God's will. 



SIX PIVOTAL POINTS IN THE PERENNIAL 
REVIVAL 



CHAPTER VI 

SIX PIVOTAL POINTS IN THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

CORTLAND MYERS' booklet, " The New Evangel- 
ism," is a much-needed emphasis of the pov^er of " the 
personal touch. If, in this volume, the relation of the 
personal worker to the perennial revival receives atten- 
tion in every chapter, the importance of the subject justi- 
fies the multiplied references. It is clear, however, that 
one of the most efficient ways of impressing any duty is to 
lend assistance to its s.ane discharge. Such is the purpose 
of this chapter, 

Henry W. Longfellow, when yet in his youth, writing 
his father regarding the choice of a profession, remarked : 
" I am not sure as yet for what my talents fit me, but I 
am determined to be eminent in something." To' what 
extent that determination affected Longfellow's success 
in life, who can tell? Perhaps none will deny that such 
an ambition was wholesome for the boy, and both stimu- 
lated and directed his energies. Worldly people may have 
ambitions in many directions; the true Christian's am- 
bition should find expression in a single course : " He that 
is wise winneth souls." The grand old Doctor Sharp, 
of Charles Street Church, Boston, once said : " I would 
rather have one young man come to my grave and affirm, 
* The man who sleeps there arrested me in the course of 
sin and led me to Christ,' than to have the most mag- 
nificent obelisk that ever marked the place of mortal 
remains." It was an ambition worthy a Christian. Many 
consecrated Christians enjoy it, and ask often, and of 
many, " How can we succeed in soul-winning? " 

77 



78 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

The answers to this question would not necessarily 
be synonymous. No man could give an answer to this 
question which would be regarded as full and final. Our 
largest hope looks only to helpful suggestions. But if 
experience, observation, and Scripture can league them- 
selves in teaching certain lessons we believe that those 
to be mentioned in this chapter are established as worthy 
of the name of fundamentals. 

I. GET god's conception OF THE SOUL'S WORTH 

The Scripture voices it : " What shall it profit a man, if 
he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? Or what 
shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? " The perish- 
able world is not, in the mind of God, comparable in value 
to the immortal soul. Christ would never have died to 
redeem the silver and gold, the cattle upon a thousand 
hills, the precious stones on land and sea. But no evan- 
gelical doubts that Christ would have been willing to die 
to redeem a single man^ — such is God's estimate of a soul. 

J. Wilbur Chapman relates how some Abyssinians took 
a British subject, by the name of Campbell, prisoner. 
They carried him to the fortress of Magdala and con- 
signed him to a dungeon without showing cause for the 
deed. It took six months for Great Britain to discover 
this. Then she demanded his instantaneous release, but 
King Theodore haughtily refused. In less than ten 
days ten thousand British soldiers were on shipboard, 
sailing down the coast to a point where they disembarked. 
They then marched seven hundred miles under a burning 
sun up the mountain heights, and unto the very dungeon 
where the prisoner was hid. There they gave battle. The 
gates were torn down, the prisoner was lifted upon their 
shoulders and borne down the mountainside, and thence 
to the ship. It cost the British Government twenty-five 
millions of dollars to release that man. Such was the 



SIX PIVOTAL POINTS 79 

value they put upon the Hfe and liberty of one English 
subject! But God puts a greater price upon the life 
and liberty of a single soul. That is why he summoned 
all heaven to its redemption, and appointed his Son chief 
Captain and Leader to effect its liberty. When we get 
God's conception of the soul's worth no sacrifice will seem 
too great to make in the effort to save it; when we get 
God's conception of a soul's worth no obstacle will seem 
insurmountable ; when we get God's conception of a soul's 
worth we will sacrifice, as did Christ, to reclaim it from 
sin, believing with Solomon, " He that is wise winneth 
souls." 

II. LET us CONSECRATE OURSELVES TO SOUL-WINNING 

Every one knows the meaning of consecration — " Set 
apart as sacred, dedicated to sacred uses, and hence sepa- 
rated from common use." Lyman Abbott illustrates by 
the two cups, made at the command of a king, by a 
jeweler. They came of a common piece of silver, and 
were of exact size and weight. One was put into the 
hand of the cupbearer to do service to man ; and one was 
sent to the temple to do service to God. The latter was 
consecrated. Consecration is one of the secrets of success- 
ful soul-winning. Doctor Dixon tells us that as one walks 
down the corridor of the Astor House, New York, on 
his way to the restaurant, he sees a man standing at the 
door who never looks at your face. His business is to 
black shoes. He is consecrated to it. Consecration is 
more needed in soul-winning than intelligence or exten- 
sive education. The world's great intellectual lights have 
not always been the world's greatest religious lights ; and 
its most highly educated men are not always its most 
effective Christians. We have splendid genius in the 
church; we have more than our share of intellectuality; 
we think that statistics will prove without question that, 



8o THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

as a class, Christian men are the world's best educated 
persons. But all of these things, if their possessors be 
without consecration, count for naught in soul-winning. 
We have known a boy, of medium ability, at work with 
his schoolmates, to win more souls between the day of his 
conversion at seven years of age and the time we parted 
company from him at twelve, than the average president 
of a Christian college has set to his credit. Henry Ward 
Beecher, the Shakespeare of the American pulpit, was 
led to Christ by a man as black as midnight, whose 
genius consisted of one thing, and one thing only — he 
knew God and sought the salvation of his fellows. 

Many have read " The Last Pages of an Officer's 
Diary," and recall how that army officer, who had but 
thirty days to live, set about finding some one to show 
him the way of salvation. In four or five pulpits, repre- 
senting as many denominations, he heard men who' were 
eloquent enough, but who gave his soul no assistance in 
its search after life. When all but a few days of the 
thirty had passed and he was growing desperate in his 
darkness, he rose after a restless night, dressed himself, 
and started for the street, and stumbled over the old 
sexton, who, in the early morning, sat upon the door-step 
in Bible study. Seeing that the sexton's Bible was marked 
and thumb-worn, he clutched for it, but the old man held 
it with a covetousness such as some men show only for 
silver and gold. When, however, he learned the purpose 
of the officer, he invited him to a seat at his side, and in 
ten minutes had shown him the way of salvation and 
brought him to the point where he could say with Paul, 
" To live is Christ, and to die is gain." Better be a sexton 
of any church at a small salary, knowing how tO' point 
men to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the 
world, than the most eloquent preacher who ever graced 
any pulpit, without that same knowledge. 



SIX PIVOTAL POINTS 8 1 



III. SURRENDER TO THE SPIRIT S COUNSEL 

" Yield yourselves to Him." He leads the yielded one, 
and his leadership in this great work insures success. It 
may take one by strange ways, and other men may ques- 
tion one's sanity at times ; but, after all, the Spirit-led man 
is the only sane man. It was a strange thing for Philip 
to leave the work in Samaria and go toward the South 
into a desert way. But it was Spirit-directed, and hence 
sane. No man plays the fool who follows the leadings 
of the Holy Spirit, even though that take him against 
what he would commonly regard his better judgment. 
Dr. Wayland Hoyt has related an experience in illustra- 
tion of this point. When he was pastor in Brooklyn he 
was engaged in special meetings, and among those who 
evinced some interest was a gentleman for whom he had 
often prayed. He noticed his attendance one week-night, 
and thought he ought to speak to him about his soul, but 
through fear refrained. Another night when he had re- 
turned to his home late, finding himself too nervous to 
sleep, he was reading in his study. As he read, something 
seemed to whisper in his ear, ''Go and see that man to- 
night." But the preacher mentally replied, " It is after 
twelve o'clock, and he is asleep, and every one is in bed," 
and read on. But the impression remained and grew. He 
argued, " It is snowing, and I am tired " ; and finally, " I 
have been working hard all day, and I don't want to go." 
But all excuses to the contrary, the Spirit persisted, and 
at last he yielded and went. As he touched the man's 
door-bell he thought : '' What a fool I am to be ringing a 
man's bell at one o'clock in the morning ; he will think I 
am insane." But instantly the door opened, and the 
man stood there, and said : " Come in, and God bless 
you. You are the man I have been waiting for all night. 
Wife and children and the servants are all asleep, but I 



82 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

could not sleep ; I felt I must find Jesus to-night." And 
the great preacher testified, " It was no trouble to show 
that man the way/' for the Spirit who had guided him 
had also gone before him. 

Beloved, is it not a mistake to suppose that only sample 
saints can enjoy the guidance of the Spirit of God; that 
only a few of the world's great souls have been selected 
as the subjects of his special favor? Many of us are 
fathers, and know the joy of giving good gifts to our 
children; let us never forget that God has more pleasure 
in giving the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. Let us 
not go after men until he sends us; let us never refuse 
when he says, " Go," for his guidance means good success. 

IV. EMPLOY THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT 

It is the divinely appointed instrument of salvation. The 
man who uses it works under the promise, "As the rain 
Cometh down from heaven, and returneth not thither, but 
watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, 
that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater : 
so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth : 
it shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish 
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing 
whereto I sent it." It might be well for us to remember 
that the promise is to the preached word rather than to 
the person preaching. Paul declared : " I am not ashamed 
of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto 
salvation, to every one that believeth." " The power of 
God unto salvation ! " Truly it is at once a divinely ap- 
pointed and a potent instrument. " The word of God is 
quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged 
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and 
spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner 
of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Let us use it ! 

In preaching the word claim the promise, " It shall not 



SIX PIVOTAL POINTS 83 

return void." A friend who was somewhat in sympathy 
with higher criticism once asked this question of the 
writer: " You know E — . — , his manner of Hfe, his mental 

capacity, and you also know Pastor M , one of the 

most beautiful characters in this country, possessed also 
of one of the most brilliant intellects. To my knowledge 

jwhen Pastor M was yet a young man he prayed God 

to make him a winner of souls, and on Saturday he would 
go into his pulpit, with his face in the dust, and beg that 
next day he might see men turn to God in great com- 
panies. But nothing came of it. He never was a soul- 
winner ; he is not a soul-winner now. But E , both in 

his work in his own church while he was yet a pastor, 
and afterward in various cities about the country as an 
evangelist, saw thousands of people profess a faith in 
Christ as the result of his preaching. Now, he is not a 
man of any such mental ability, nor of any such high 
moral character as my friend, the pastor mentioned. How 
explain why God made one a winner of souls, and refused 
that privilege to the other ? " The answer was instant, 
and as we believe correct : " We admit all you say con- 
cerning these men, but there is one thing you forget. The 
pastor you mention is also our friend, and we ardently 
admire him for his moral character and his great brain ; 
but never have we heard him so much as make mention 
of the blood of Jesus Christ. The heart of the gospel 
has been left out of his preaching, and his sermons have 
been brilliant philosophical discussions, destitute often of 
even a quotation from the word after he had parted com- 
pany with his text. Our friend E makes much of 

the blood, and adds Scripture to Scripture in his dis- 
cussion. Let us remember that God's promise is to the 
preaching of the word and not to eloquent utterance." 

Whenever a man reaches the point where he feels it is 
as profitable to take a text from Shakespeare as from 



84 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

Paul, he must expect a fruitless ministry. Whenever 
a personal worker has nothing better than human argu- 
ments, or even an exceptional experience to rehearse be- 
fore a man under conviction, he need not look to see the 
man come to Christ. It is the v^ord of God that wins 
from sin to the Saviour; and without it success in soul- 
winning is unknown. By way of illustration a personal 
experience: It was on a Christmas evening at the Union 
Mission in Minneapolis. Many of the men present in 
that down-town mission were drunk, some of them so 
boisterous that they had to be ejected to save the service 
from confusion. When the sermon was finished an op- 
portunity was given for prayer. About a dozen men 
came forward, among them one who looked far worse 
than any of his unfortunate fellows. Drink had clothed 
him in rags, bloated his face, and dulled his mind. Once 
at his side, we called his attention to the promise in John 
6 : 37: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to 
me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast 
out." We emphasized it by reading it three or four times. 
Then we urged him to read it, which he did. We re- 
quested a second reading, a third, a fourth, a fifth, until 
evidently the meaning of the promise was clearly appre- 
hended. Then, after prayer, we parted company. Eight 
days went by, and in a Sunday-afternoon meeting for 
men only, where several came out for Christ, this man of 
the mission-meeting appeared among them. He was 
sober, clean, clear-eyed; so marvelously improved in ap- 
pearance that at first we failed to recognize him. When 
he had made himself known we involuntarily remarked: 
" Mr. Carroll, you look like another man." To which he 
replied : " By the grace of God I am another man. I 
trusted that promise of John 6 : 37, and he has kept it. 
I have been sober ever since that night, with no desire 
even to use tobacco. I have been able daily to make an 



SIX PIVOTAL POINTS 85 

honest living, and now I have a new lease on life, or rather 
a lease on a new life." Up to the day when he sickened 
and died he was a most faithful Christian. Employ the 
sword of the Spirit! Mr. Spurgeon's maxim had occa- 
sion. It was this, often addressed to his students : " Have 
your own Bible, and turn to the passages showing the 
way of salvation. The most successful soul-winner I 
know takes men captive by the sword of the Spirit." Is 
not that what Paul meant when he wrote to Timothy, 
" Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, 
a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling 
aright the word of truth "? 

V. IN THIS, THE DIVINEST WORK, BE DIRECT 

Here Christ is our example. No indirectness with him. 
To the fisherman, " Follow me." To the publican, 
" Come after me." To Nicodemus, " Ye must be born 
again." To the woman at Sychar : " If thou knewest the 
gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee. Give me to 
drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would 
have given thee living water." There are teachers who 
advise that we adroitly introduce our Jesus; that we 
engage with men upon all the subjects in which they are 
interested, and watch for an opportunity to work around 
to the great theme of the soul and its salvation. Seminary 
professors whose memory we revere, great and good men 
of God, taught us after this manner. But there is no 
warrant in the word. 

Christ's example was also the apostolic method. Let 
us read the first chapter of John and see how the early 
disciples won their associates; or the second chapter of 
Acts, or the fourth, or the eighth, or the ministry of 
Paul as recorded in that same book. Whatever else these 
apostles did, directness in appeal to men characterized 
every one of them who became soul-winners. Andrew 



86 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

" findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We 
have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the 
Christ. And he brought him to Jesus." There is our 
sample for personal work. No indirectness suggested by 
that process, nor by any other Scripture. We believe the 
indisposition to speak to men frankly and at once about 
their souls is suggested by the Adversary. 

Doctor Wharton once addressed the students of the 
Southern Baptist Seminary. In the course of his re- 
marks from the text, " Go' out into the highways and 
hedges, and compel them to come in," he said : '' During 
the war I was attending Roanoke College at Salem, Va. 
For several days it was reported that General Averill, 
in command of a heavy force, was on a raid through Vir- 
ginia and aiming at Salem to tap the Virginia & Tennes- 
see Railroad at that point, and thus cut off the supplies 
coming to Lynchburg. One morning the cry was heard, 
' The Yankees are coming ! The Yankees are coming ! ' 
Looking up the street, we saw them riding pell-mell into 
town, horses' hoofs clattering, sabers rattling, men shout- 
ing, women and children flying to their homes, and fear 
and confusion falling upon all. A good number of us 
young fellows took to our heels for the woods about half 
a mile away. When nearly across the field I heard several 
shrill, hissing sounds in my immediate vicinity followed 
by sharp reports of firearms. Looking back, I saw there 
was a man after me on horseback, and he seemed to be 
shooting at every jump. I reached the fence and fell Over 
it, and lay as flat on the ground as a lizard on a log. 
Presently I heard him say, ' Come out of there, sir ! ' 
I looked up, and he had a great big sharpshooter leveled 
at me, and the hammer of it was saying, ' Be quick, or 
you are gone.' * Come out,' the fellow said. The end of 
that pistol was as big as a stovepipe. There was only one 
thing to do. * Yes, sir,' I said, ' I am going to. Don't 



SIX PIVOTAL POINTS 87 

shoot ! ' and out I came. ' Now/ said Doctor Wharton, 
' I call that personal work. He was after me, and he got 
me/ " Why cannot we as Christian soldiers be as coura- 
geous and as direct in our methods that we may capture 
men for Him ? 

How much we lose by indirectness, whO' can measure ? 
A pastor in New York City walked home with a druggist, 
watching for an opportunity to speak to him about his 
soul, but did not find it. Once at his door, the druggist 
urged the pastor to come in. He accepted, spent an hour 
in conversation, but saw no chance to speak of Christ. 
After he had put on his overcoat and was ready to 
leave, the druggist laid a hand on his shoulder and said : 
" Can't you stay a little longer and pray with us ? I have 
been greatly interested for my soul, and shall never be 
satisfied until I am a saved man." There are those who 
have been in rebellion against Christ, who have grown 
tired of it and long for surrender, and, like the confed- 
erates at Richmond, will be exceedingly glad when the 
day comes that they are conquered, and peace has been 
declared between them and Him whose right it is to reign. 
Let Philip teach us : " Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith 
unto him. We have found him of whom Moses in the 
law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the 
son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him. Can there 
any good thing come out of Nazareth ? Philip saith unto 
him, Come and see." Directness in soul-winning is after 
the divine example and is under the divine benediction. 

VI. WITH WHATEVER SUCCESS BE DISSATISFIED 

The man who is satisfied in soul-winning is stultified in 
spiritual interest. We remember how it is related of the 
great Danish sculptor, Thorwaldsen, that having finished 
to his own satisfaction a piece of work, he sat in gloom 
with a sob in his soul, and declared that, having once 

G 



88 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

realized his ideal, he feared that henceforth he should ac- 
complish nothing. The man that is satisfied in soul-win- 
ning has better occasion for such fear. Paul had seen 
scores turn to God in consequence of his preaching before 
he ever penned the words : " I have great heaviness and 
continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that my- 
self were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kins- 
men according to the flesh." 

One may rejoice in the success given ; but to be satisfied 
with it would be to grow indifferent to the dying about us. 
At college we had a roommate who seemed sad and dis- 
pirited. One day we turned upon him, and asked : " Why 
are you not more happy? Your father provides you all 
the money you need. You have enjoyed good school ad- 
vantages all your life. In person you are attractive, and 
you are popular, and yet there is a gloom over your spirit." 
He answered by reciting an experience, the particulars of 
which were well known to us. It involved the rescue of 
three persons from drowning. But while he was about 
the work three others went down tO' be seen no more until 
the grappling-hooks reclaimed the dead. And, conclud- 
ing the story, he remarked : '' Never since that day have 
I been entirely happy, because the cries of those drowning 
ones are still in my ears." 

Ah, beloved, is not one difficulty with the present-day 
evangelism the fact that our ears are deadf The cries of 
the drowning are not in them. The men about us are 
going down, and we know it, but we are not deeply dis- 
turbed about it! If we were, our very distress would 
convert us into soul-winners every one. We have not 
forgotten Moody's report of his first impulse in soul- 
winning. A young man, teaching a class of girls in 
Moody's Sunday-school in Chicago, sickened with con- 
sumption, and was about to die. He seemed in such dis- 
tress that Moody sought to comfort him by saying that 



SIX PIVOTAL POINTS 89 

he had done better with that class of girls than any one 
else. Under the hands of others they had seemed incor- 
rigible. But he was so weighted down with sorrow be- 
cause he had failed to bring even one of them to Christ 
that Moody hired a carriage and drove the young man to 
the distant homes of every, one of those girls. According 
to Moody's report, he entered each home, and said: 
" I have just come to ask you to come to the Saviour.'' 
And then he prayed as Moody had never heard a man 
pray. For ten days he labored, and at the end of the 
ten days every one of that large class had yielded to 
Christ. When the train was moving to take him to the 
South, they stood in the Michigan Southern depot, tearful 
at parting from this noble teacher, yet joyful in their 
newly found hope. And as he left for that Southland, 
to die there, as it afterward proved, he went, having illus- 
trated what ten days' work for God can do when one con- 
verts his dissatisfaction into soul- winning, into inspira- 
tion in service ! 



THE REGULAR CHURCH SERVICES AND THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER VII 

THE REGULAR CHURCH SERVICES AND THE PERENNIAL 
REVIVAL 

UNQUESTIONABLY the forms of church life are 
undergoing radical and far-reaching changes. The 
former custom of two services on Sunday, a midweek 
prayer-meeting, and the Sunday Bible school will not 
suffice for twentieth-century methods. This is true, not 
because the twentieth-century churches are so much in 
advance of those of the first century, but rather because 
the nineteenth-century methods were a retrogression from 
the methods of Christ, Peter, and Paul. The members 
of the earliest church, " Day by day, continuing stedf astly 
with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at 
home, . . took their food with gladness and singleness 
of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the 
people. And the Lord added to them day by day those 
that were saved." 

The ideal expressed in that Scripture has doubtless 
given rise to the institutional church, which, at present, is 
very popular. If one studies this latest evolution of 
church life, he will find it expressing itself under two 
very distinct and altogether different phases. There is an 
institutional church that dotes upon ice-cream suppers, 
full-dress receptions, popular lectures, chess-boards, bowl- 
ing-alleys, the social settlement, not to speak of the occa- 
sional dance and amateur theatricals; and there is the 
institutional church that expresses itself in the organi- 
zation of prayer-meetings, mission circles, Bible study 
classes, evangelistic corps, and multiplied mission- stations. 

93 



94 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

It is not difficult for one to see that this latter insti- 
tution repeats the essential features of apostolic times, 
and enjoys the essential spirit of the apostolic power. A 
writer describing the work of that great church — the 
Philadelphia Baptist Temple — says : " On an average 
twenty-five religious meetings of various kinds were held 
in the Temple weekly. This did not include meetings of 
trustees, or the business meetings of various societies. 
There is something going on in the Temple all the time. 
It is a church that is never closed." All of this suggests 
not only the possibility of the perennial revival, but the 
relation which the regular meetings of any baptized body 
of believers should sustain to the promotion of the same. 

It is the purpose of this chapter to make prominent this 
relation by three remarks: Multiply the number of such 
services ; make them the mediums of salvation ; and yield 
them to the administration of the Spirit. 

MULTIPLY THE NUMBER OF SUCH SERVICES 

It is a strange circumstance that men have been so 
slow in recognizing the value of multiplied religious 
services. When the Holy Ghost administered the church 
her members " continued stedfastly in the apostle's teach- 
ing and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and the 
prayers." The Scriptures which recite this fact make it 
clear that meetings in the name of the Lord were almost 
continuous. 

Think of the advantages which would naturally result 
from the oft-repeated assembly of the saints. 

This would provide for Christian fellowship. The new 
convert would be saved from that loneliness which often 
follows the turning from evil associates, and which Satan 
has converted into a very wilderness temptation for the 
newly baptized. The cordial handshake, the smiles of 
new friends^ and the response of purified hearts are all 



THE REGULAR CHURCH SERVICES 9$ 

adapted to the comfort and encouragement of the con- 
vert, and are almost equally appreciated by those who are 
older in the brotherhood. It was after David, the lad, 
had mxt and conquered Goliath, the enemy of Israel, that 
Abner brought him before Saul, with the head of the 
Philistine in his hand; and, as he stood that day in the 
presence of the king, Jonathan, the king's son, looked upon 
him, and it is recorded : " When he had made an end of 
speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit 
with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his 
own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let 
him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jona- 
than and David made a covenant, because he loved him as 
his own soul." What a beautiful ensample this of the 
experience into which every man should come the moment 
the great Enemy has been put beneath his feet. To him 
the children of the King's house should extend a wel- 
come to heart and home. Men little dream of the full 
value of friendship. Who will ever imagine the whole 
benediction of Christian fellowship? One of the poets 
expressed the thought that the song he had breathed into 
the air had come back to him, long afterward, in the heart 
of a friend. Let every child of God know that the friend- 
ship which he shows to the babes, or older brethren in 
Christ Jesus, will come back to him in characters as 
kingly, and natures as strong, as was David's in the sight 
of Jonathan. 

Again, the multiplication of such services tends to the 
establishment of faith. There is more than fellowship 
in the assembly of the saints. The saints continued also 
" stedfastly in the apostles' teaching." Every Christian 
man needs line upon line, precept upon precept. A man 
may give too little of his time to service; he is in no 
great danger of attending too often upon scriptural in- 
struction. Harry Monroe's method of establishing in 



96 THE PERENNIAL REVLVAL 

righteousness the men snatched from the social sewers of 
Chicago was a meeting every night in the week, in which 
song and testimony and prayer were coupled with instruc- 
tion in the sacred Scriptures. He knows that in addition 
to the necessity for fellowship they must be established 
in the truth. Since they wrestle not " against flesh and 
blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, 
against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spir- 
itual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places," noth- 
ing short of the " whole armor of God " will enable them 
to stand in that day, " and, having done all, to stand." 
And if they are to stand, their loins must be girded with 
truth; "the breastplate of righteousness" must be put 
on ; their feet must be shod with " the preparation of the 
gospel of peace " ; the " shield of faith " must be taken of 
them, the " helmet of salvation, and the sword of the 
Spirit, which is the word of God." Their success is in 
" all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in 
the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance." 
Every church, every pastor, every evangelist should be 
as solicitous for new converts, that they should not be 
" tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind 
of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the 
wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, may grow up 
in all things into him, who is the head, even Christ," as 
was Paul solicitous for the stability and the spiritual 
success of the new-born at Ephesus. 

The multiplication of meetings also opens fields of serv- 
ice. All about the country we find churches that have 
planned for only a minimum of meetings. They regard it 
too expensive to keep their sanctuaries open every night, 
and needless as well, since only a small company congre- 
gates at the stated seasons of assembly. They seem to 
forget that there is such a thing as creating a center that 
calls its own congregation. Why is it that in village places 



THE REGULAR CHURCH SERVICES 9/ 

every Saturday afternoon sees a fair congregation at the 
corner grocery, or grouped before the post-office, or 
crowded into the saloon? Undoubtedly in part, because 
men know these are congregating-places. Theater man- 
agers are more shrewd than the majority of God's saints. 
They know that to keep open seven nights in the week 
insures a better attendance upon each performance than if 
they presented entertainments spasmodically, or on fixed 
dates, considerably removed one from another. There 
is such a thing as creating in the hearts of churchmen 
a desire to see one another daily, just as the members of 
an affectionate family delight to meet morning, noon, 
and night. Such assemblies create their own opportunities 
for service. 

Johnston Meyers proved himself in touch with the New 
Testament ideal when he deliberately planned the six out- 
stations in Chicago, in some one of which members of 
his church held a meeting every night in the week. A 
while ago we clipped from a religious newspaper a story 
of how a preacher, meeting on the hotel piazza a lady 
friend who was hastening to a late breakfast, was saluted 
by the remark : " I am late because I am tired. I danced 
last night until I blistered my feet." The preacher imme- 
diately put to her the question, " Did you ever blister 
your feet in the service of your Redeemer?" Without 
meaning in any way to condone the offense of dancing on 
the part of a so-called Christian woman, it may be in order 
to ask whether the life of the church of which she was a 
part presented any appeal, or even opportunity, to blister 
her feet in the service of her Redeemer. 

After all that has been said, and justly said, about one's 
creating his own opportunities of service to Jesus Christ, 
it remains a solemn fact that the organized body has some 
obligation to aid in multiplying these opportunities; and 
the church that numbers but two or three assemblies in a 



98 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

week, and conducts no missions, has little ground of com- 
plaint when its young people turn from the dead institu- 
tion to a live dance, an energetic game of cards, or the 
ever-open theater. Youth is a hungry thing, and a rest- 
less thing. If it is not fed by the church, and set to work 
in the same, it forages elsewhere, and remains to serve 
where it has been satisfied. O. P. Gifford, of Boston, tells 
how General Lee, seeing a soldier off duty after green 
persimmons, called out sternly to him, " What are you do- 
ing there ? Is that your diet ? " " No," answered the 
private ; '' I am shrinking my stomach to fit my diet." It 
is a sad day for any church when its slack service gives too 
great an opportunity to go after the green persimmons 
of worldliness, since the members who feed on them are 
shortly robbed of all spiritual capacity. 

The man whO' does too little for God is in danger 
of doing less. It is very easy for the one-service-a-week 
Christian to become a no-service Christian. Some years 
ago, in Minneapolis, a man testified in an after-meeting in 
these words : " If anybody wants a recipe for half-hearted 
Christianity let him come to me. I have a perfect one. It 
served me for seven years, and I am done with it, and 
want to part with it. It is this : Shortly after I joined 
the church I decided that I didn't care for the Sunday- 
evening service; the morning sermon was enough. In 
the afternoon I visited or drove.. At eventime I chatted, 
lounged, and read the newspaper. Soon I became dis- 
satisfied with my conduct, and excused it by criticiz- 
ing the * uninteresting ' pastor. A little later I came to 
question whether the morning service repaid my pains, 
and gradually dropped out of that. For a time I drifted, 
and came near concluding that Christianity was a failure, 
and the church a farce. But God at last opened my eyes 
to see my mistake, and now I am in every service, morn- 
ing, noon., and night." And yet, though the man had 



THE REGULAR CHURCH SERVICES 99 

adopted them all, he was putting in a poor proportion of 
his time at the house of God, and in work for God. 
There are one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week. 
Who can imagine, therefore, that he has discharged 
his whole duty when he has spent four, or even six, 
of these in the service of the King? Paul appreciated 
the logic of things, and hence wrote: " Let us hold fast 
the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he 
is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one an- 
other to provoke unto love and to good works: not for- 
saking the assembling of ourselves together, as the man- 
ner of some is." If the saints at Jerusalem " day by day 
continued stedfastly with one accord in the temple," 
should we not inquire whether this sustains a certain 
definite relation to the further statement, " The Lord 
added to them day by day those that were saved " ? 
This leads us to the second remark : 

MAKE THESE SERVICES A MEDIUM OF SALVATION 

From the sacred record it would appear that with that 
early church there was no other thought than that of em- 
ploying their gatherings to bring men to God. How far 
we have drifted from that divine ensample! How few 
of the ordinary services of the church are to-day supposed 
to be set for the salvation of men ! The Sunday-morning 
service is almost wholly dedicated to the culture of the 
saints ; the Sunday-school, in a majority of our churches, 
is intended as an opportunity for children to get a smat- 
tering of Scripture knowledge; and in a great many 
churches the Sunday-night service represents the one op- 
portunity of evangelistic endeavor; while the midweek 
prayer-meeting furnishes occasion of talk and prayer; 
mission circles look to instruction regarding home and 
foreign fields and the raising of money for the support 
of representatives; the Ladies' Aid provides opportunity 



lOO THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

for conversation, repairing cushions,, purchasing carpets, 
and providing social occasions. We enumerate these not 
to speak a word against what is being done, but to impress 
freshly the scriptural ideal. 

The Sunday-night service should he evangelistic. 
Somehow or other it has come about that the unsaved go 
to the Sunday-evening services in larger numbers than to 
the services on Sunday morning, and the man who does 
not adapt his sermon to that fact misses a God-given 
opportunity, and is very likely to fail in his work in 
consequence of ignoring the fitness of things. To us it 
matters little that J. G. Holland once contended that, with 
his pastoral work, his funerals, marriages, civic concerns, 
social obligations, his work on committees, secular and re- 
ligious, etc., etc., it was a sort of outrage on the preach- 
er's patience and endurance to expect him to prepare a 
second sermon for Sunday. He had better drop his in- 
terest in civics, cancel his social obligations, turn over 
committee work to unemployed laymen, and thereby find 
time for the preparation of the Sunday-night sermon, lest 
he be guilty of practising that part of the Episcopalian 
liturgy which refers to a man's doing the things he ought 
not to have done and leaving undone the things he ought 
to have accomplished. It is some years since Frederick 
Chapman, of the " Ram's Horn," published an annual re- 
port for ten leading churches, in each of four leading 
denominations in Chicago, showing that in this time the 
ten Congregational churches had received 306, the ten 
Methodist 342, the ten Presbyterian 409, and the ten Bap- 
tist 489, respectively. Into their membership on profes- 
sion of faith. This showing was not complimentary to 
any one of these denominations ; but the increase of some 
over others illustrated perfectly the emphasis the denom- 
ination in Chicago was then putting upon the Sunday- 
night service as a medium for soul-winning. 



THE REGULAR CHURCH SERVICES lOI 

Every service, held in a church of Christ, should pre- 
sent salvation. Read the sermons of Charles Spurgeon ; 
you will see that the morning discourses were as well 
adapted to the accomplishment of redemption as were 
those delivered at night. The man who never preaches 
a sermon to the unsaved in the Sunday-morning service 
neglects the only opportunity he ever has to reach many 
unregenerate men. The husbands of Christian wives 
commonly attend this service with them, but seldom see 
the sanctuary either Sunday evening or in seasons of spe- 
cial meetings. The idea, particularly prevalent in the 
North of our country, that a man is not to invite men 
to rise for prayer, or come forward to confess Christ in 
a forenoon service, was evidently an invention of the Ad- 
versary, and is now defended by cheap aristocracy. It is 
impossible to speak with sufficient enthusiasm of evidences 
of the Holy Ghost's work which the writer has witnessed 
in connection with an evangelistic sermon for Sunday 
morning. Why should not the midweek prayer-meeting 
be made the occasion also for soul-winning ? There is no 
better atmosphere for the work of the Spirit than that 
created by the testimonies of experience and the petitions 
of an earnest people. In fact, why should not Christian 
Endeavor prayer-meetings, meetings in the interest of 
missions, and even social meetings be employed to the 
same high end? Russell Conwell affirms that his annual 
church fair has been so conducted as to be the best soul- 
winning meeting of the year. If church fairs must be 
conducted, let them be of this sort! 

What it might mean to key the whole church, in its 
various forms of activity, to the note of salvation, Doctor 
Robbins, of Cincinnati, once illustrated. He and his peo- 
ple, of the Lincoln Park Temple, began January I, 1903, 
to pray and labor for an addition of two hundred mem- 
bers before January i, 1904. Every meeting was made 



102 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

to conserve this purpose, to aid in answering this prayer. 
At the end of six months and six days there were an 
even hundred who had been received; and at the end of 
twelve months, two hundred and seven. The pastor sig- 
nificantly added, " The seven being the Lord's good 
measure." Now, to understand the real secret of this suc- 
cessful work one needs to follow him a little farther in 
his remarks : " Our church is always open from seven 
in the morning till ten at night, or even twelve, every day 
in the year. At every service the Bible is read, or quoted, 
and prayer is offered. At each of the prayer-meetings 
invitations are given to Christians, backsliders, sinners, 
to manifest, by rising, a desire to be remembered in spe- 
cial prayers. At the close of the morning sermon I 
always give an invitation for any whose hearts have been 
pricked to manifest the same by rising. Every Sabbath 
night in the year we have an after-meeting. I always ask 
God to use the sermon in the salvation of souls. In call- 
ing I make religion the subject of conversation, and al- 
most always ask if I may kneel and pray." Again we say, 
every service should present the subject of salvation! 

Every organization should have the same object. From 
the highest office to the humblest, from the most im- 
portant organization tO' the one of least concern, all should 
be made to contribute to evangelistic endeavor. When, in 
the second chapter of Acts, the believers were " added 
together,'* or organized, it was not for the purposes of 
self-defense, but to propagate the truth and make converts. 
So, in the sixth chapter of Acts, when deacons were 
elected, the reason assigned was the excellent one of giv- 
ing the apostles more time for prayer and the ministry 
of the word. 

When Paul and Barnabas were commissioned as evan- 
gelists, this new office was created by the Spirit for 
this same purpose of soul-winning ; and as from time 



THE REGUi-AR CHURCH SERVICES IO3 

to time offices and organizations multiply, Christian men 
should not forget the solitary occasion of their exist- 
ence. The supreme purpose of the Ladies' Aid Society 
is not the covering of nakedness, and the satiating of 
hunger, but a robe of righteousness and the bread of life 
instead. The supreme purpose of a Christian college is 
not the education of an intellect, the turning out of an 
IngersoU, but the salvation of a soul and the evolution 
of a saint. 

Doctor Hillis, speaking of mechanical discoveries, says : 
" Each tool is ordained of God for the reenforcement of 
manhood. Every time a river is enslaved a thousand men 
are set free. Every time an iron wheel is mastered a 
thousand human muscles are emancipated." Beloved, 
machinery in the church of God ought to mean the same 
thing. If it does not set men free from the enslavement 
of sin, if it does not emancipate their minds from the 
bonds of unbelief, it comes short of the divine will con- 
cerning it, and has little right to wear the name of Christ. 
When we say all church machinery, involving every of- 
ficer and every organization, should be made to serve 
the interests of evangelism, we say exactly what we 
mean — all! 

YIELD TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT 

In reading the marvelous record of the second chapter 
of Acts one is always likely to forget the administration 
of the Spirit, likely to forget that all of this came to pass 
only because he came upon the disciples. Doctor Cum- 
mings remarks : " The Holy Ghost from the day of 
Pentecost has occupied an entirely new position. The 
whole administration of the affairs of the church of 
Christ since that day has devolved upon him. . . That 
day was the installation of the Holy Spirit as the admin- 
istrator of all things." The apostle Paul confirms Cum- 



104 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

mings' opinion, when, in the twelfth chapter of First 
Corinthians, he gives the Holy Ghost the administration 
over all ; " diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit " ; 
" diversities of workings, but the same God." Different 
works, manifestations of " the same Spirit " : gifts of 
" faith, in the same Spirit " ; " gifts of healing, in the 
one Spirit." Then, after naming " miracles," " prophecy," 
" tongues," " interpretations," he adds, " But all these 
worketh the one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to each 
one severally even as he will." 

It is the right of the Spirit then to administer the serv- 
ices of Sunday. There is no portion of the Sabbath serv- 
ice which can be rendered apart from the Holy Ghost. 
Peter was compelled to say, " We have preached the 
gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from 
heaven." And Paul expresses it, " Praying with all 
prayer and supplication in the Spirit." Jude adds, " Pray- 
ing in the Holy Ghost." What is the value of prayer ex- 
cept it be " in the Spirit " ? Paul insists that if we sing, 
we must sing " in the Spirit." And Paul again says, 
" My preaching was not with enticing words of man's 
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." 
When one remembers that no man can say " Jesus is Lord, 
but in the Holy Spirit," he realizes then that except He 
administer the services of the sanctuary they are ad- 
ministered In vain. 

The difference between a man-administered service and 
the service administered by the Holy Ghost is illustrated 
in the first and second chapters of Acts. In the first chap- 
ter, before the Spirit had descended upon them, they 
held a business meeting and made choice of Matthias, 
and the whole procedure was a mistake. After the Spirit 
had come upon them they held a street meeting; thou- 
sands were saved, and the sample church of the centuries 
brought almost instantly into existence. The words of 



THE REGULAR CHURCH SERVICES 10$ 

Jesus to his immediate disciples should have no less mean- 
ing to twentieth-century Christians : " Tarry ye, until ye 
be endued with power from on high." When Mr. Moody 
heard a man say, " It remains for the world to see what 
God could do with a man fully surrendered to the Spirit," 
he is reputed to have answered, " Then it shall see, for I 
will be that man." But it still remains for the world 
to see what God can do with a church which is absolutely 
Spirit-administered. Truly, as one has said : " It would 
not enjoy a perennial revival, but rather a continuous 
' vival,' for its abundant life would destroy any necessity 
of being revived." 

All meetings in the name of Christ should he Spirit- 
administered. Surely the mission circle should be Spirit- 
administered. It was the Holy Ghost who said, " Sepa- 
rate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have 
called them." He alone can use the workers! It was 
the Holy Ghost who sent them into Seleucia. He alone 
can appoint the place of their labors. It was when Saul 
was filled with the Holy Ghost that he rebuked Elymas, 
the sorcerer, and brought even the wicked deputy to be- 
lieve, " being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord." He 
only can conquer opposition and make conquest of the 
most rebeUious hearts. 

The average prayer-meeting has a poor existence be- 
cause the pastor, or some other human leader, insists upon 
presiding over it, and deciding who shall pray, and ad- 
vising who shall testify. Pestiferous as are the men who 
testify at great length, and injurious to the meeting as are 
those who "pray always," these are not responsible for 
the paralysis of most prayer-meetings. The trouble lies 
in another direction; the Holy Ghost has not been per- 
mitted to administer; a man-made program has been 
foisted upon the meeting, and people wonder why the 
Holy Ghost does not carry it out. " Where the Spirit of 



I06 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

the Lord is, there is liberty," and testimonies will not be 
wanting; for all the prayers indited our impatient times 
will not be willing to wait. 

Finally, whatever the plans or the purposes of church 
lifCj the Spirit should administer them. There is one 
feature of that Council at Jerusalem which approved its 
conclusions, and that was expressed in these words, " It 
seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us." His will 
once learned, ours should always be conformed to it. The 
sainted Gordon has wisely remarked, " Whether the au- 
thority of this one ruling sovereign Holy Ghost be recog- 
nized or ignored determines whether the church shall be a 
unity or an anarchy." " The unity of the Spirit " is a 
phrase born of inspiration, and betokens power. Who 
can tell what it would mean to have the Holy Ghost 
so govern in all plans, purposes, and appointments of the 
church that the entire membership should work as under 
one man? Who can tell what might be accomplished if 
only men gave themselves absolutely to the government 
of the Holy Ghost? In a conversation B. F. Jacobs re- 
marked upon the moving of the Immanuel Baptist Church, 
Chicago, something after this manner : '' When the church 
decided to remove their building about fifty feet south in 
order to escape the overshadowing hotel, several con- 
tractors said it could not be done. Finally, however, one 
brave contractor said, ' Show me the money, and it 
shall come to pass.' The bargain was made. Fifty jack- 
screws were brought, the house was undergirded, and two 
hundred men put to work, four to every screw. One man 
turned the screw a quarter of the way around, and in 
courses of fifty they acted in concert. When, however, 
the four courses had finished their tuggings at the screws 
one could see no motion in the building. But/' said 
Jacobs, " if you put your hand on the wall you could 
feel it tremble." A few days later that great stone edifice 



THE REGULAR CHURCH SERVICES IO7 

was lifted into the air, and shortly made its journey 
to its new location. 

If the administration of the Holy Ghost was properly 
admitted the members of the church would find them- 
selves acting in concert, and the rise of such a church 
would be so evident, and its progress to the place of divine 
appointment so rapid, that all men would be astonished 
by it. 

The words of Jesus are as applicable to-day as they 
were nineteen centuries ago, and as truly addressed to the 
organized bodies of believers as to individuals : " Ye shall 
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon 
you." 



HUSBANDING THE RESULTS OF THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER VIII 

HUSBANDING THE RESULTS OF THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

IN a former chapter we spoke of the second chapter of 
Acts as a rich pocket in the great mine of God's truth, 
and suggested the HkeHhood of returning to it for illus- 
tration again and again in the progress of these pages. 
Is it not true that verses forty-one to forty-seven of this 
great chapter are replete with suggestions regarding this 
subject ? Here is the report of a mighty revival, the results 
of which are so well husbanded that the accessions to the 
church receive ideal care and illustrate ideal conditions. 
It has long been the custom of men to regard this old 
First Church at Jerusalem as a sample, in all respects, of 
what a church of Christ, wherever found, should be. 
That the custom is well warranted seems proved by the 
circumstance that the modern church, partaking of the 
spirit and adopting the plans which characterized the or- 
ganization at Jerusalem, has commonly been successful 
beyond her sisters. 

Turning, then, to this text, we hear it said of the new 
converts : " They, then, that received his word were bap- 
tized : and there were added unto them in that day about 
three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in 
the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of 
bread and the prayers. And fear came upon every soul : 
and many wonders and signs were done through the apos- 
tles. And all that believed were together, and had all 
things common; and they sold their possessions and 
goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had 
need. And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one 

III 



112 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they 
took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, 
praising God, and having favor with all the people. And 
the Lord added to them day by day those that were 
saved." 

Accepting this inspired report as a sample for our 
behavior toward the results of a revival, some obligations 
are clearly set forth. 

THE DUTY OF INDOCTRINATION 

" And they continued stedf astly in the apostles' teach- 
ing." Every new member of a church needs to be indoc- 
trinated. The apostles' teaching here was in perfect ac- 
cord with the word; in fact, it was nothing other than 
instruction in the word. One cannot read the preceding 
verses, which give the brief of Peter's sermon, without 
discovering how they dealt with the great doctrines of 
the word. 

Doctrine determines character. The religious teaching 
one receives determines not only his opinion, but his per- 
sonality. " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 
By experience and observation we see that statement of 
the Scripture constantly verified. It is true that " out of 
the heart are the issues of life " ; but it is equally true that 
the head largely controls the heart, and unless one with 
the head rightly apprehends the fundamental doctrines 
of the Scripture his heart is not to- be depended upon ; and 
his character will constantly evince corresponding defects. 
The somewhat popular opinion, now often and eloquently 
expressed, to the effect that it makes little difference what 
one believes if only he is sincere, is not only without the 
warrant of Scripture, but opposed alike by all observation 
and experience. The word of God contains more than 
a trend of thought; it is possible for those who are un- 
prejudiced and obedient students to find in its great sen- 



HUSBANDING THE RESULTS II3 

tences " common ground of agreement on definite points," 
and so formulate their doctrines and systematize their 
theology. 

By systematizing theology we do not necessarily mean 
the skeleton that is used in theological seminaries. It was 
that sort of systematized theology against which Mr. 
Beecher delighted to hurl his philippics. On one occa- 
sion he said : " The doctrines which the schools teach are 
no more like those of the Bible than the carved beams of 
Solomon's temple were like God's cedar trees on Mount 
Lebanon. But men cut and hew till they have shaped 
their own fancies out of God's timber, and then they get 
upon them like judgment-day thrones, and call all the 
world to answer at their feet for heresies against their 
idols." 

But the doctrines to which dry theologians have given 
statements are one thing, while the great truths embodied 
in texts of Scripture are another thing ; and it is this latter 
thing that humble students of the word transmute into 
temperament and personality. Prof. James Orr, in his 
volume, " The Christian View of God and the World," 
says : " If there is a religion in the world which exalts 
the office of teaching, it is safe to say that it is the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ. It has been frequently remarked 
that in pagan religions the doctrinal element is at a 
minimum — the chief thing there is the performance of a 
ritual. But this is precisely where Christianity distin- 
guishes itself from other positive teaching ; it claims to be 
the truth; it bases religion on knowledge which is only 
attainable under moral conditions. I do not see how any 
one can deal fairly with the facts as they lie before us in 
the Gospels and Epistles without coming to the conclu- 
sion that the New Testament is full of doctrine. . . The 
gospel is no mere proclamation of ' eternal truths,' but 
the discovery of a saving purpose of God for mankind. 



114 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

executed in time. But the doctrines are the interpreta- 
tion of the facts. The facts do not stand blank and 
dumb before us, but have a voice given to them, and a 
meaning put into them. They are accompanied by living 
speech, which makes their meaning clear. When John 
declares that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh and is the 
Son of God, he is stating a fact, but he is none the less 
enunciating a doctrine. When Paul affirms, ' Christ died 
for our sins according to the Scriptures,' he is pro- 
claiming a fact, but he is at the same time giving an inter- 
pretation of it." It makes all the difference between the 
Spirit-guided and the self -governed man whether one's 
course in life is determined by the dogmas of Scripture 
or not. 

Sound doctrine therefore is all-essential. Paul wrote 
to his children in the faith — the Ephesians — calling upon 
them to come with him to a more perfect stature in 
Christ Jesus, and assigned his reason, " That ye may be 
no longer children, tossed to and fro, and carried about 
with every wind of doctrine." To the Hebrews he said, 
" Be not carried away by divers and strange teachings (or 
doctrines), for it is good that the heart be stablished by 
grace." The history that professed Christians are making 
steadily illustrates the need of that appeal. 

Years since, in England, the great Spurgeon, who had 
stood nearly alone in his defense of the full inspiration 
of the old Book, speaking to the subject, " A Spiritual 
Revival the Want of the Church," said : " The presence 
of sound doctrine, has, to a great degree, ceased. . . We 
have a new theology. New theology! Why, it is any- 
thing but a ^A^ology! What we have now is an ology 
which has cast God off utterly and entirely, and en- 
throned man, as it is the doctrine of man, and not the 
doctrine of the everlasting God." There were plenty of 
people who thought Spurgeon a croaker and supposed his 



HUSBANDING THE RESULTS II5 

words had little or no occasion. But the annual reports 
of English evangelical denominations are bringing the 
churches of that land to realize more and more the secret 
of the great preacher's success, and at the same time they 
begin to understand the mystery of failure in many 
churches. It may be easier to compromise with every peer 
who puts forth a philosophy of religion ; but, be it remem- 
bered, when one trades the truth of God for a temporary 
truce he pauperizes himself and does the cause of Christ 
an irreparable wrong. Ernest Gordon, speaking of his 
father, the noble pastor of Clarendon Street, said : " His 
obedience to God was as unquestioning as that of the 
legionaries to Caesar, Much as he disliked controversy, 
the imminent probability of trouble never tempted him to 
curtail or to conceal the least essential of his convictions. 
[ Better the church militant,' he said, ' battling for the 
truth than the church complaisant surrendering truth for 
the sake of peace. The Prince of Peace is a Man of war. 
Let us be less afraid of condemnation for the truth than 
of communion with error.' " Where the Scriptures speak, 
let not the Christian be silent! God forbid that any 
preacher should do other than teach the truth which God 
has proclaimed ! Paul wrote to Timothy, " All scripture 
is given by inspiration, and is profitable for doctrine," 
and the early preachers illustrated that profit. It cannot 
be reckoned a mere coincidence that those men who were 
so fruitful in good works were the most faithful to every 
letter of the divine word. 

Eusebius, in his " Church History," quotes Irenseus as 
having said : " I can recall the very place where Polycarp 
used to sit and teach, his manner of speech, his mode of 
life, his appearance, the style of his address, his frequent 
references to Saint John and to others who had seen 
our Lord ; how he used to repeat from memory the dis- 
courses which he had heard from them concerning our 



Il6 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

Lord, his miracles and his mode of teaching; and how, 
being instructed himself by those who were eye-witnesses 
of the Light of the World, there was in all that he said 
a strict agreement with the Scriptures." Do we wonder 
that Polycarp was a power? Are we surprised that he 
should be among the church Fathers whose writings are 
reckoned most sacred and Christian, and whose converts 
were a multitude? The man of whose teaching it can be 
said, " There is a strict agreement with the Scriptures," 
is God's prophet indeed. The promise of success will be 
fulfilled to him, for " he that abideth in the doctrine of 
Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there 
come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive 
him not into your house, neither bid him godspeed; for 
he that biddeth him godspeed is partaker of his evil ways." 
Our churches have no more solemn duty to-day toward 
their children, new-born, or better-grown, than to instruct 
them in the greater truths of Scripture. Some of us have 
found it well worth while to set apart twenty evenings in 
the winter months for this solitary purpose. When men 
know the truth, *' the truth will make them free." 

THE FURNISHING OF FELLOWSHIP 

Returning again to our remarkable mine we find the 
sacred record saying that they continued not alone in the 
apostles' doctrine, but " in fellowship." The word " fel- 
lowship " there ought to imply every phase of friendship 
that is pure and needful to the new life in Christ. 

The church should furnish her nezv converts with social 
fellowship. They have come tO' her from the fellowship 
of the world, from the affection and friendship of the un- 
regenerate. In that fellowship they have found something 
of pleasure. It is in vain to Insist that men find no grati- 
fication in the fellowship of the flesh. There is enjoy- 
ment there. One of Satan's strongest temptations is at 



HUSBANDING THE RESULTS II7 

this point. To part with the companions of evil is often 
the hardest requirement for those who are convicted of 
their need of Christ. This sacrifice is made the more dif- 
ficult by Satan's suggestion that the church will furnish 
nothing as a compensation for their surrender of the 
world's fellowship. Would that " the accuser of the 
brethren " had less occasion to make this suggestion. 
Christian people ought to give such royal welcome to 
every convert from the world as to make that temptation 
longer impossible. For every hand let go when one turns 
his back upon the old life, there ought to be a score out- 
stretched in friendly grasp. For every place of affection 
resigned in parting from fleshly associates there ought to 
be sainted hearts offering unstinted love. It is a blessed 
thing when a young man, or woman, who has been popu- 
lar with the world's set and for Christ's sake turns from 
it, can testify to having found larger and truer friend- 
ship in the church. There is no time in human experience 
when the heart hungers for fellowship as in that season 
which immediately follows conversion. There is no time 
when one's whole being is so sensitive to the touch of a 
friendly hand as when first he confesses Jesus Christ, and 
there is no time when one is so sensitive to careless 
and indifferent treatment as then. To our dying day we 
shall carry fresh in memory the man or the woman who 
gave us a warm welcome into the fellowship of Christ. 
No wonder James Montgomery wrote : 

People of the living God, 

I have sought the world around, 
Paths of sin and sorrow trod, 

Peace and comfort nowhere found. 
Now to you my spirit turns — 

Turns, a fugitive unblest; 
Brethren, where your altar burns. 

Oh, receive me into rest. 



Il8 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

Lonely I no longer roam, 

Like the cloud, the wind, the wave ; 
Where you dwell shall be my home. 

Where you die shall be my grave. 
Mine the God whom you adore; 

Your Redeemer shall be mine; 
Earth can fill my soul no more; 

Every idol I resign. 

And for every idol given up God's people ought to 
furnish a friend. 

There is a power for social fellowship which our 
churches have but poorly improved, and that is the Chris- 
tian home. We speak now of the house in which we 
dwell. There can be little question that the better homes 
of the city are, as a rule, occupied by Christian men and 
women. Why should not these gifts from our Lord be 
oftener employed for his cause and the social pleasures of 
his people? If the most attractive of these homes were 
opened to church life as the homes of the worldly are 
constantly open to social gaieties, Satan would not so 
easily retain his hold upon the people. They would 
find that for which the young heart yearns, namely, the 
highest and most attractive social life; and our Saviour 
would have at his command another and one of the most 
efifective forces of modern civilization. 

A sainted pastor said touching the Scripture, " He 
hath visited and redeemed his people," " Four times in 
the Gospels is our Lord's advent to earth spoken of as a 
visit, but it was a visit which never for a moment looked 
toward his abiding. At his birth he was laid in a bor- 
rowed manger; at his burial he was laid in a borrowed 
tomb, and between the cradle and the grave was a sojourn 
in which the Son of man had not place to lay his head. 
The mountaintop, whither he constantly withdrew to com- 
mune with his Father, was the nearest to his home, and 



HUSBANDING THE RESULTS II9 

hence there is a strange, pathetic meaning in that saying : 
' And every one went to his own house — Jesus went into 
the Mount of Olives.' " Beloved, that was when the world 
knew him not ; that was when the church was poor, and, 
like its Master, scarce had where to lay its head. To-day 
we are rich and increased with goods. The palaces of the 
earth are in our possession. Shall we shut him out of 
them, or shall we open wide the doors and, calling in 
his friends, expect him to come and find in the host and 
hostess faithful followers and friends, who shall say: 
" Blessed Master, here is our home ? It is thine also ! 
Use it to thy glory ! Employ it for the improvement of 
thy people and for the progress of thy church." The 
house on the hill of Bethany was a sample after which 
the homes of the saints should be patterned, that through 
them Christ might the more speedily conquer, and in 
them his followers find the sweetest of all social fellow- 
ship. 

There is no fellowship comparable to fellowship in 
Christ. John Lord, in his essay on '' Paula," speaking of 
the friendship existing between her and Jerome, says: 
'' A mere worldly life could not have produced such a 
friendship, for it would have been ostentatious, or prodi- 
gal, or vain; allied with sumptuous banquets, with in- 
tellectual tournaments, with selfish aims, with foolish 
presents, with emotions that degenerated into passions. 
Ennui, disappointment, burdensome obligation, ultimate 
disgust are the result of what is based on the finite and the 
worldly. . . How unsatisfactory and mournful the friend- 
ship between Voltaire and Frederick the Great, with all 
their brilliant qualities and mutual flatteries! How un- 
meaning would have been a friendship between Chester- 
field and Doctor Johnson, even had the latter stooped 
to all the arts of sycophancy." 

But how different the fellowship of those who are one 



I20 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

in the faith that is in Christ; who are moved by kindred 
purposes, inspired by the same great Spirit, praying for 
the same noble ends, pressing forward for the same un- 
speakable prize! Of the early Christians it was said, 
'' Behold, how they love one another " ; and to the present- 
day Christians the same expression applies. People who 
are one in faith know the sweetest fellowship on the earth. 
There is no dearer delight than the communion of real 
saints. The richest hours of life are those spent in the 
company of such Christians as excite you to no suspicion, 
but call you to perfect confidence; whose motives you 
know to conceal no evil thing, whose spirit you believe 
to be unselfish, whose secret life you are perfectly con- 
vinced is clean, and whose steps and thoughts are ordered 
of the Lord. Anna Barbauld was thinking of this very 
thing when she wrote : 

How blest the sacred tie that binds, 
In sweet communion, kindred minds ! 
How swift the heavenly course they run, 
Whose hearts, whose faith, whose hopes are one ! 

To each the soul of each how dear ! 
What tender love, what holy fear! 
How doth the generous flame within 
Refine from earth, and cleanse from sin! 

Their streaming tears together flow, 
For human guilt and human woe; 
Their ardent prayers united rise, 
Like minghng flames in sacrifice. 

Nor shall the glowing flame expire, 
When dimly burns frail nature's fire ; 
Then shall they meet in realms above, 
A heaven of joy, a heaven of love. 

Into such a fellowship the new converts of a church 
have a right to come, and if a church fails in any measure 



HUSBANDING THE RESULTS 121 

to furnish it, it comes short, by so much, of being accept- 
able to its Saviour and God. 

The house of God should be a center of social fellow- 
ship. Why should this beautiful building be shut for 
four or five days a week against its own supporters, and 
those also who more sadly need Christian influence and 
fellowship? The keeping open of the house of God 
every night in the week is not such an additional expense as 
to make the experiment impossible. Let it be understood 
that the holy sanctuary is not to be made a playhouse, or 
a cheap store, where donated ice cream and well-watered 
lemonade are on sale in the name of sweet charity. Such 
things never provide for the highest fellowship, and they 
truly fail to advance spiritual interest. Assemblies called 
together to study the word of God ; suppers served, at ac- 
tual expense, to be followed by a program that will be 
instructive to the mind and stimulating to the soul ; prayer- 
meetings with specific objects; missionary convocations 
that look to the support of the work at home and abroad, 
with an occasional evening in which the people meet solely 
for the purpose of conversation, acquaintance, and closer 
fellowship — these we have found to be the affairs that 
bring content to the new convert, that win many from 
sin to the Saviour, and that splendidly help the cause of 
the Son of God, as that cause is represented by the church. 
Let us continue stedf astly " in fellowship." 

GROWTH IN THE ESSENTIAL GRACES 

The old First Church at Jerusalem went from the 
apostles' doctrine and fellowship to " the breaking of 
bread and the prayers. And fear came upon every soul : 
and many wonders and signs were done through the 
apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all 
things common ; and they sold their possessions and goods, 
and parted them to all, according as any man had need. 



122 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

. . And the Lord added to them day by day those that 
were saved." (R. V.) 

Those early believers emphasized the spiritual culture 
of the individual. The administration of the Lord's Sup- 
per and the exercise of prayer are divinely appointed 
means to that end. We can do no better for the new con- 
vert than to keep before him the great truth that Christ 
died for him, and the great necessity of constant com- 
munion with the Saviour. These things tend to create 
an atmosphere in which the individual will experience 
spiritual progress. Charles Spurgeon, in his volume en- 
titled " The Soul Winner," says : " Some converts are like 
certain insects which are the product of an exceedingly 
warm day, and die when the sun goes down ; or, like the 
salamander, they live only while the fire lasts, and expire 
at a low temperature." What business has a church per- 
mitting the sun of its spiritual Hfe to go down? What 
business have we, who are older in the faith, to let the 
fires die down? Every babe born into the home by his 
very coming necessitates a temperature in that house which 
is much beyond the normal ; and every soul born into the 
church of God has a right to expect there a spiritual tem- 
perature in which the least and tenderest life can be main- 
tained and increased. It is no surprise that many of 
the churches of this country report " no baptisms " and 
that others report " few baptisms," when one remembers 
that God might demur at casting new-born Christians 
into a spiritual ice-chest. We have heard a woman pray 
for an increase in the spiritual temperature of her church, 
and announce as a reason : " For, Lord, we long to see 
souls born from above; but we know that thou wilt not 
send infants into a snow-bank." The secret of Pentecost 
was in the ten days' prayer-meeting. The spiritual state 
of that people was such that God could entrust to them 
three thousand converts. What a suggestion here for the 



HUSBANDING THE RESULTS I23 

members of churches who are praying for a perennial re- 
vival ! 

Here also is the suggestion of self-sacrifice. " All that 
believed were together, and had all things common; and 
they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to 
all, according as any man had need." God must have had 
a purpose in moving this first Christian church to give 
after such a manner. He must have intended that the 
churches of all countries and all ages should see in these 
saints samples of sacrifice for Christ's sake. This in- 
spired record is a call to the people of the present to " lay 
by in store on the first day of the week, as God has pros- 
pered them"; the rich in greater sums, the poor in 
smaller, yet divinely proportioned. 

In the beginning of 1853 George Miiller was in need 
of funds for his great orphanage. He went to God in 
prayer, and there came from one person forty thousand 
dollars; and immediately following it one shilling, seven 
pence, contributed by two factory girls. The rich and 
the poor joined in carrying on that mighty work of God, 
and by their contributions gave equal evidence of their 
Christianity. " The Son of man came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
many." To be a Christian at all is " to walk even as he 
walked." 

The best test of one's profession of faith is the collec- 
tion plate. It has been said that "the prayer-meeting 
is the thermometer of the church's life." It may be a 
thermometer, but the test of the church's life is the treas- 
urer's report. The man who communes much with God 
thereby comes into a sweet fellowship with him, and will, 
in consequence, sacrifice for him. Contributing to Christ's 
cause he will count one of the privileges of his life. In 
Paris a poor, blind woman put twenty-seven francs into 
a plate at a missionary meeting, and when one went to 



124 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

her and remonstrated against her giving so much, she 
said : '' I am engaged with others in straw work. Much 
of our labor is at night. My friends about me here are at 
an expense of twenty-seven francs per annum for oil; 
but, as I am blind, and do not need a lamp, I give what 
I save out of that circumstance to shed light into the 
heathen lands to those who are spiritually blind." 

Finally, these new converts became fervent winners of 
souls. That is evidenced in the language, " The Lord 
added unto the church day by day such as were being 
saved." One need not be in church for many years before 
attempting to bring others to Jesus. Such an opinion was 
unknown to the early disciples. So soon as Andrew came 
to know Jesus, who he was, we read : " He findeth his 
own brother and saith unto him. We have found the 
Messias; and he brought him to Jesus." So soon as 
Philip accepts the Nazarene as the Son of God, he finds 
Nathanael. This custom of the early church ought to 
characterize the churches of Christ tO' this day. Some 
years ago, in Owatonna, Minn., a fine young fellow — a 
student in Pillsbury Academy — came forward at the close 
of a meeting and confessed Christ. The testimony of 
others was heard, and a second song was sung. Imme- 
diately this young man arose, and walked to the back of 
the house, and up into the gallery. The evangelist feared 
that the young student's heart had failed him, and he had 
decided to return to his seat rather than longer face the 
crowd. Shortly this fear was allayed when that young 
student came forward, bringing with him a friend, who 
penitently confessed Christ. 

When we so well husband the results of a revival as to 
see the man who has spent but a day with Jesus going 
after his fellows, telling them of him whom he has found, 
we shall indeed have introduced a prominent factor in 
favor of the perennial revival. 



THE RELATION OF STREET PREACHING TO 
THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER IX 

THE RELATION OF STREET PREACHING TO THE PERENNIAL 

REVIVAL 

THERE are two great commissions in the New Testa- 
ment. One of these is recorded in Matthew 28 : 19 : 
" Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost." The other is Luke 14 : 21 : " Go out quickly into 
the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the 
poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind." The 
first looks to the evangelization of the world — the object 
for which Christ died; the second, to the winning of the 
city — the storm -center of civilization, and the stronghold 
of Satan. 

One cannot properly understand the Great Commission 
of Matthew 28 : 19, nor truly interpret Luke 14 : 21, 
without being impressed with the fact that the evangeliza- 
tion of the city and bearing witness to the world involve 
open-air work. The Salvation Army has set the churches 
a needed example. A few years ago their outdoor work 
was considered an innovation, and, by not a few, an insult 
to the conservative methods of the more conservative 
churches. How strange that men so often forget to con- 
front the religious novelty with the question, " What did 
Jesus do ? " and by this comparison reach a conclusion. 
Sometimes our Saviour spake in the synagogue; more 
often in the field; but most often in the street. The 
perennial revival must in some measure depend upon a 
return to the Master's methods. Have we ever stopped 
to analyze the philosophy of Christ's conduct when he 

127 



128 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

chooses the street for pulpit and auditors? The study of 
the parable in Luke 14 : 15-24 reveals at once the wisdom 
and the grace of street work. 

THE MISERY OF THE STREETS 

Taking up its suggestions in order, we are at once and 
deeply impressed with the misery of the streets. " Go 
out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring 
in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the 
blind." 

The poor are in the streets of the city. We may not 
understand it, but it is a fact that the poorest of the poor 
prefer city life. It is probable that that indigence which 
precludes the success of many people is often associated 
with an abnormal sociability. Dr. P. S. Henson used to 
tell the story of an Irish woman in Chicago who had 
been in the slums for years and was always a pestiferous 
dependent. By and by some of the people, to whom she 
had made herself a nuisance, gave her some money and 
shipped her several miles into the country. A few weeks 
later she was found in her old haunts, and when asked 
why she was willing to quit the open country with its 
beautiful landscape, its invigorating air, its comparative 
plenty, and go back to her place of squalor, foul air, and 
starvation, she answered: " Sure, and I got tired of seeing 
only stumps ; I'd rather look at people." That this social 
nature accounts for the fact that great sections of cities 
become poverty centers we do not affirm; but that they 
are such centers no one questions. 

You may travel the war-cursed South, and stop with 
the colored people and the poor whites, and see many 
evidences of poverty that are painful, but for sheer suf- 
fering we know nothing that equals the squalor of city 
life. In a Northern city, famed for its wealth and cul- 
ture, not twelve blocks from the City Hall, and not one 



THE RELATION OF STREET PREACHING I29 

block from splendid residences, we found a man utterly 
deserted, lying on a pallet of straw in the corner of an 
otherwise empty house, dying of starvation and disease, 
without sympathy or assistance. That day the truth of 
this text was burned into our heart, " The poor are in 
the streets of the city." A man, therefore, who takes a 
dry-goods box and converts it into a pulpit and speaks 
to the passing crowds gets a portion, at least, of the 
class of people to whom Christ devoted so much of his 
ministry. 

The maimed are in the streets of the city. This term 
comprehends individuals of every social station and class. 
The maimed man may be rich or poor, ignorant or highly 
educated, stooped with the weight of age, or buoyant with 
the blood of youth. But the great majority of the maimed 
are in the streets of the city, and this statement remains 
true whether you speak of the physical or moral man. 
The car-wheel that mercilessly grinds beneath its weight 
a little child and lames him for life is no respecter of 
station or of people ; and the great enemy of men's bodies, 
minds, and souls is equally indifferent to the same. He 
would drag a Solomon from his position of purity and 
his place of prominence to evil conduct and disgraceful 
end as willingly as he would deceive and destroy a plain, 
unlettered, and poor Judas Iscariot. He would maim for- 
ever the life of the sweetest sister with just as much 
relish as he would lead into iniquity the most vicious 
and criminally inclined man. 

Ballington Booth, who is an authority on such subjects, 
declares that the Salvation Army finds in the slums 
women who once moved in refined circles and exhibited 
unusual natural gifts. In one's study of sociology he is 
often saddened to learn that not a few of the wrecks 
of men found among the submerged were born and bred 
in homes of opulence and refinement. The university 



130 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

often makes its contributions to the crowd who sleep on 
mission floors, and sometimes royalty is found in the com- 
mon pile of human wreckage. When they were ex- 
huming Pompeii they dug up a slab, and cleaning the dirt 
from the face discovered what seemed to be the features 
of a man. Carefully they cleared away every accretion 
from the stone, and lo, the face of one of the old kings 
appeared. But it was sadly marred, for when the cold 
slab was in plastic state a dog had walked across it, and 
every footstep had either mangled or obliterated some 
part of the noble face. One of the sad sights of the street 
is that of the marred men and women — women and men 
who have upon them the marks of the beast, marks that 
have defaced their kingliness and obliterated the features 
of royalty. When, therefore, one finds in the open-air 
a gospel forum he finds the multitude which includes the 
men and women of direst need. 

The halt and the blind are also in the streets. We do 
not speak so much of those who have lost a limb, nor yet 
of those who must be led about by the hands of others ; 
these are only a few of the halt and the blind. The men 
who were once successful in professions, who in busi- 
ness were once swifter than their competitors, whose ac- 
complishments seemed only an earnest of coming honor, 
but who have met with adversity, and through money 
losses, or moral losses, or both, have come to limp and to 
lag behind in the race of life — the disheartened man, the 
defeated man — these make up the halt; and the streets 
are full of them. 

It is no wonder that Christ wept over Jerusalem. The 
anguish that escaped his lips as he looked on Jeru- 
salem is felt by every Christian who deeply studies his 
own city. Our acquaintance may not be so large, we may 
not have entered so fully into the secret of suffering 
hearts, our sympathies may be regarded as comparatively 



THE RELATION OF STREET PREACHING I3I 

shallow; yet who is not afraid to sit down and think of 
his acquaintances? Think of the men who have failed 
in business and lost their wealth; the men who have 
failed in their professions and taken forty-second rank 
when they had hoped to hold first; of the men who 
dream great projects but are never able to bring them 
to pass ; think of the men who have been thrown out of 
employment, or else are compelled to accept positions 
which do not bring a competence. Aye^ these are the 
things that make us afraid. Just as a few years since, we 
dreaded to read about the famine in India ; just as we pre- 
ferred not to look upon the pictures of the suffering, starv- 
ing natives of that country; and as now we shudder at the 
reports of war-stricken lands; so the average man shuts 
his eyes to the scenes of the city in which he lives. 

There are too many of our fellow creatures who, like 
Jacob, when the sun rose upon him at Peniel, are halting 
upon the thigh. Yes, and there are many who, like 
Bartimaeus, are among the blind. They have lost their 
way, they are groping in the dark, they have found no 
hand to lead them out of danger ; or worse still, they have 
felt no fear of the sin which they commit, nor of the 
Adversary whom they serve. Such is the street of the 
city. The Christian church has too long covered its eyes 
from the vision. If we continue we may impose upon 
ourselves irremediable blindness. They tell that in the 
days of Rome a man who had been condemned by the law 
escaped. In order to disguise himself he put a patch 
over one eye and kept it there for twelve years. Think- 
ing then that the danger of recognition had passed, he 
removed the patch. The sight of the eye was gone! 
Under this enforced shielding it had died. God forbid 
that the church which wears the name of Jesus Christ 
should shut her vision from painful scenes until her spir- 
itual sight is destroyed ! 



132 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

It means something when our Christ utters the com- 
mand, *' Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the 
city." The commission is just as incumbent as that of 
evangelizing the world. It is a question indeed whether 
we shall go on gospelizing the public or continue to speak 
only to the small fraction that we can coax within the 
walls of the church house. We find this statement in the 
Journal of the grand John Wesley : " I preached near the 
hospital to twice the people we should have had at the 
house. What a marvel that the devil does not like the 
field preaching! Neither do I! I like a commodious 
room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit. But where is my 
zeal if I do not trample all these under foot in order to, 
save one more soul ? " 

THE MISSION TO THE STREETS 

The very misery of the streets explains Christ's com- 
mand, and our commission. The Lord of this parable is 
none other than Jesus himself; and the servants are none 
other than those of us who have named his name. 
Through us, if ever at all, he must mitigate the misery of 
the streets. 

The first invitations to this feast are to equals and in- 
timates. That is at once natural and right. No true for- 
eign missionary spirit exists in a man who is not con- 
cerned for the salvation of his nation ; no real disposition 
to save America is to be found with him who forgets 
his own State; there is no evangelist true to the State 
who forgets his own city. The city missionary who neg- 
lects the unsaved members of his own house is a hypo- 
crite. The public takes no stock in the woman who pre- 
sides with grace at a foreign missionary circle, but whose 
home influence does not help her husband heavenward, or 
favorably affect her unregenerate children. God forbid 
that we should speak aught to decrease the interest in the 



THE RELATION OF STREET PREACHING I33 

heathen world; its very smallness is one of the sins of 
the church. God forbid that we should utter a word to 
detract from the motto " America for Christ " ; our con- 
tributions for home missions ought to be increased many 
fold. But God forbid that we should forget that the 
Christian's first duty is to the man next to him. Andrew 
was a sample saint ! " He first findeth his own brother 
Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Mes- 
sias ; and he brought him to Jesus." Philip did not forget 
his fast friend Nathanael. Too much of our religion con- 
sists in what we call going to " divine service," but what 
is as a matter of fact " going to human rest." We go to 
easy pews, and listen to a comfortable sermon. Wilbur 
Crafts reports a man in Maine who complained, " It is 
this working between meals that is killing me " ; but if 
our churches die it will be for the opposite reason. Their 
very lives depend upon their working between meals, and 
the work is at hand. 

The first mission of every man of us is to his own — 
the members of his own house — or of his circle of social 
friends. When Jesus healed the Gadarene he said, " Go 
home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the 
Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on 
thee." We must be rid of the notion that one has to 
enter the sanctuary and ascend a pulpit before he can 
preach the gospel. The private ministry of the gospel 
is the sine qua non of the perennial revival. 

This mission is not to stop with one's own, it must ex- 
tend to the needy. In the parable the first invitation was 
to friends, but the second invitation was to the poor, and 
the maimed, and the halt, and the blind — in a word, to the 
needy. 

It is useless to define " the needy." Living in a brown- 
stone front is no sign that a man's heart is not hungry. 
If a man is a foreigner, and poor, tinctured with an- 



134 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

archistic tendencies, that is no proof that he is without 
an abiding sense of lack in his life. One of the great 
problems of the present time — a pressing problem, a 
problem that must be rightly solved, or the nations 
suffer^ — ^is this Christian social problem of meeting, not 
the wants of men, but their needs — needs of body, needs 
of mind, needs of soul. The keenest, clearest thinkers of 
our age, such men as combine at once successful busi- 
ness ability with a sympathetic heart, are not satisfied with 
the present attitude or past accomplishments of the 
churches of Jesus Christ. One of these wrote to a min- 
ister of the gospel : '' I have no quarrel with the church, 
but I have no relish for the praise or worship which ends 
with itself. It seems to me that the function of Chris- 
tianity is to make the earthly conditions better." Louis 
Albert Banks says : " We discuss with vigorous eloquence 
' How to Reach the Masses ' and kindred topics, but that 
divine hungering and thirsting after souls; that sublime 
passion for souls which mastered Philip and sent him 
climbing into the chariot of the eunuch ; that drove Peter 
from the housetop of Simon the tanner to the house of 
Cornelius; which made Paul and Silas and Barnabas 
flames of living fire, so that before the days of steam their 
own enthusiasm burned their way through nearly all the 
known world, has died out of these respectable and con- 
servative garrisons of righteousness." The average reader 
can determine for himself whether Banks is right or not. 
Some of us have reached the point where every charge 
against present-day profession pushes us back to personal 
examination of motive and of method in reaching our 
fellow men ; and we have come to feel that a confession 
of evident weakness, and an attempt to right them, is far 
better than countercharges, or recrimination. 

The needy should move us just as the halt and the blind 
move us, and whenever and wherever we see a man in 



THE RELATION OF STREET PREACHING 1 35 

need, in bodily need, in mental need, in spiritual need, 
suffering from debasement of the flesh, from false phi- 
losophies, from heart hunger, then Christ's commission 
should so far command us, and so far include our needy 
brother as to cause us to attempt to give him " the gospel 
of the Son of God." In that gospel men see their bodies 
to be the temples of the Holy Ghost, their minds to be the 
instruments of the Spirit, and their souls to be the sub- 
ject of infinite love and eternal growth. Let us go into the 
streets and seek them, and speak to them saving truth. 

This commission is still more far-reaching; it includes 
the neglected. When the servant came back from the 
streets and lanes with as many of the poor and the 
maimed and the halt and the blind as would come he re- 
ported, "And yet there is room." " The Lord said unto 
the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and 
compel them to come in." The expression, "the high- 
ways and hedges," is significant. There are the people 
that live off to one side of better society. They are the 
social outcasts. Have you not noticed that the commis- 
sion to these was the most urgent one? There was a 
kind invitation given to the social equals, a more press- 
ing one to the people in need, but the most insistent in- 
vitation was reserved for the neglected. The reason for 
this is not far to seek. Jesus Christ was the great so- 
ciologist of the ages. If it be true that "never man 
spake like this man," it is still more true that never man 
thought as he thought. He went as deeply into all so- 
ciological questions as Deity itself could go, and his pre- 
scriptions for them will prove, at last, the all-wise and 
adequate ones. It is right to legislate on questions of 
labor and capital ; it is right to talk arbitration ; it is right 
to effect compulsory education, but let the Christian never 
forget that the solution of the difficulties arising out of 
ignorance, out of prejudices, and out of oppression, is not 

K 



136 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

SO much with congresses as in the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Just so long as New York City goes on with a population 
larger than Detroit, in which there are practically no 
Protestant churches ; just so long as the Thirteenth Ward 
of Boston, with its thousands of souls, has scarce a Prot- 
estant church, while the wealthier Back Bay Ward wit- 
nesses their multiplication; just so long as upper Euclid 
Avenue, Cleveland, is crowded with sacred cathedrals, 
and the sanctuaries are moving away from the ever-in- 
creasing center; just so long as the city of Chicago retains 
a " black hole " of three hundred thousand in which only 
weaker missions work, the churches of Jesus Christ must 
be regarded as neglecting their Master's commission. 
These centers permeate the atmosphere with the skep- 
ticism which they breed. They produce anarchists who 
take as much pleasure in destruction of the church as they 
could find in the overthrow of the State. 

When, some years ago, three of the most prominent 
churches of Chicago, located on the very edge of its 
deserted, neglected section, were burned within three 
weeks, the very suspicion of incendiarism emphasized 
the fact that they might be reaping a destruction for which 
more guilty sister churches had sown. No army ever 
beat a more shameful retreat than that which has char- 
acterized the so-called Army of the Cross, as presented in 
the Protestant churches of America, who have moved 
from glutted centers into sparsely settled sections where 
was the wake of wealth. We maintain that a properly 
equipped building, a vigorous preaching of the gospel 
will call a crowd to the very section of the city where thea- 
ters flourish seven nights in the week and saloons hold 
great companies twenty out of every twenty-four hours. 
But if there be some vacant pews inside the sanctuary, 
then carry your pulpit outside, and almost any kind of 
preaching, with the aid of organ and singers, can collect 



THE RELATION OF STREET PREACHING I37 

an audience many times larger than that which commonly 
rustles its silks in the suburban church. 

THE MESSAGE TO THE STREETS 

Every follower of the Nazarene is favored in the mes- 
sage which has been put into his mouth. It is his high 
privilege to call men to a feast. There are few more at- 
tractive terms than " feast." Go to a Southern barbecue, 
and watch the people when the master of ceremonies 
announces, " Dinner is ready." There is a rushing re- 
sponse. In cultivated Boston we saw the representatives 
of one of the most honored denominations, on their way 
to dine, so crowd Mechanics' Hall as to endanger the 
more feeble people who were attempting to press their 
way to a plate. But no feast of body is comparable to 
this which Christ has spread. The man who goes out 
to proclaim it will always find in the streets some who 
are hungry for it, and who are also sensible of their 
starving condition. It is a mistake to suppose that the 
crowds are rejecting the gospel. On the contrary, the 
churches are neglecing the crowds. There are not many 
men who hear the gospel with any regularity and reject 
it. There are thousands and tens of thousands in every 
city who never hear it. We have erected our commodious 
building, employed an eloquent preacher, and hired a com- 
petent or incompetent sexton and suppose that with this 
our whole duty is discharged. When the house is not 
filled we blame the folks outside, and defend our speech 
by calling attention to the preparation we have made for 
them. But what has that to do with the Great Commis- 
sion? The words of Jesus were never directed to the un- 
converted, calling them to the sanctuary; they were ad- 
dressed to disciples, sending them into the streets and into 
the world. It was a blessed epoch for the church when 
the members at Jerusalem were scattered abroad and 



138 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

went everywhere preaching the word. It will be a more 
blessed epoch if ever the professed followers of the Naza- 
rene scatter themselves on the same mission. 

What churches could accomplish if their members were 
consecrated is evident in what has already come to pass. 
There is no other institution which compares with the 
church in calling together crowds who come not for 
social pastime, nor because compelled, but of their own 
will. In the gospel God is giving his best, and many so 
understand it. It is, therefore, all the more incumbent on 
the churches to spread that proclamation. How often 
the coming of some famous man calls unchurched people 
to the sanctuary ; and how often also some of these same 
people are caught by the gospel and their lives yielded to 
God. The popularity of the speaker may account for 
their hearing the gospel, but the power of the gospel alone 
accounts for their salvation. Why should the less famous 
disciple leave the unregenerate populace to such a pre- 
carious event as the possible coming of some popular 
preacher? Why should he not make more sure for these 
the word of witness, by watching, even while he walks 
the streets, for an opportunity to tell the good news of 
redemption? Some millenniums ago Moses uttered a 
wish which finds repetition in the heart of every man who 
has been put into the ministry by God's Spirit : " Would 
God that the Lord's people were prophets, every one." 

Do we shrink from the sacrifice of street preaching? 
Is our pride opposed to such procedure ? Then how much 
we need to sit again at the feet of the great Master, 
until he has taught us to follow him in his daily walks, 
until he has shown us how to work, and in our hours of 
rest to recline upon his bosom until his very spirit has 
permeated us and made sacrifice a privilege! 

If, for any reason, we feel utterly incompetent to 
undertake this commission to the streets, what about the 



THE RELATION OF STREET PREACHING 1 39 

means with which God has blessed us, and the offerings 
by which we could send to that same surging crowd a 
substitute? After the battle of Petersburg, a church in 
Philadelphia received word that two or three thousand 
men were wounded and bleeding and were without suf- 
ficient attention. Doctor Talmage, addressing the peo- 
ple, said : " I will not make any appeal. There are two 
or three thousand men bleeding to death at Petersburg. 
Pass the plate ! '' That day women stripped the rings 
from their fingers and the jewels from their necks, and 
cast them in, that the wounded might have attendants and 
the dying be nursed back to life again. 

The Christian man who studies the streets will rightly 
interpret the spirit of Jesus, who, when he looked upon 
the multitude, was filled with compassion for them. With 
his Saviour he will see that the poor are there, the 
maimed, the halt, the blind; yea, there are the wounded, 
the bleeding, the dying. The cushioned pew may be a fit 
place to pray for a perennial revival, but the man who 
prays in the sanctuary and declines, or fails, to seek the^ 
souls in his home, in his office, in the shop, and in the 
streets has prayed in vain. 



THE RELATION OF PEW-RENTALS TO THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER X 

THE RELATION OF PEW-RENTALS TO THE PERENNIAL 
REVIVAL 

THE caption of this chapter reveals no new subject. 
The custom of pew-rents was unknown to the early 
church ; but it has so long been in vogue that the man who 
pleads for the free-pew system seems, to some at least, to 
set himself in opposition to ecclesiastical order. Let it 
be remembered, however, that since the time it came into 
practice there have been protestants. It is doubtful if 
these protestants have ever been so large and influential 
as now. And while they are yet in the minority, their 
cause waxes and must eventually win. To aid in hasten- 
ing that day this chapter is devoted. 

In pleading for the free pew we shall attempt to make 
statements from which dissent will be difficult. 

THE FREE PEW IS FRATERNAL 

It represents the higher sentiment of humanity. We 
do not believe in the " gospel of humanity." Humanity 
is a sinner and not a Saviour. And yet in this sinner 
there are sentiments which bespeak his former un fallen 
state, some finer feelings clinging to him, coming down 
from the day when humanity was sinless; and among 
them is this feeling of fellowship as between man and 
man without respect to riches, social standing, breeding, 
or birth. You remember that Charles Kingsley expressed 
this sentiment in writing when, under the nom de plume 
of Parson Lot, he said: " I was looking in at the windows 

143 



144 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

of a Splendid curiosity-shop in Oxford Street, at a case 
of humming-birds. I was gloating over the beauty of 
those feathered jewels, and then wondering what was 
the meaning, what was the use of it all ? Why had those 
exquisite little creatures been hidden for ages, in all their 
splendor of ruby and emerald and gold, in the South 
American forests, breeding and fluttering and dying that 
some dozen out of all those millions might be brought 
over here to astonish the eyes of men? And as I asked 
myself why these boundless varieties, these treasures of 
unseen beauty had been created, my brain grew dizzy 
between pleasure and thought; and, as always happens 
when one is most innocently delighted, I turned ' to share 
the joy,' as Wadsworth says^ and next to me stood a huge, 
brawny coal-heaver in his shovel hat, and white stockings 
and high-lows, gazing at the humming-birds as earnestly 
as myself. As I turned he turned and I saw a bright, 
manly face with a broad, soot-grimed forehead, from 
under which a pair of keen, flashing eyes gleamed won- 
dering, smiling sympathy into mine. In that moment 
we felt ourselves friends. If we had been Frenchmen 
we should, I suppose, have rushed into each other's arms 
and * fraternized ' upon the spot. As we were a pair of 
dumb, awkward Englishmen, we only gazed a half-minute, 
staring into each other's eyes, with a delightful feeling 
of understanding each other, and then burst out both at 
once with, ' Isn't that beautiful? ' ' Well, that is ! ' And 
then both turned back again to stare at our humming- 
birds. I never felt more thoroughly than at that minute 
(though, thank God, I had often felt it before) that all 
men were brothers ; that fraternity and equality were not 
mere political doctrines, but blessed God-ordained facts; 
that the party-walls of rank and fashion and money were 
but a paper prison of our own making, which we might 
break through at any moment by a single hearty and 



THE RELATION OF PEW-RENTALS I45 

kindly feeling; that the one Spirit of God was given with- 
out respect of persons; that the beautiful things were 
beautiful alike to the coal-heaver and the parson ; and that 
before the wondrous works of God the rich and the 
poor might meet together and feel that whatever the coat 
or the creed may be, ' A man's a man for a' that/ and 
one Lord the maker of them all." If there is any one 
place in all the world where the man of means and the 
man without means, the man of learning and the unlearned 
man should meet, touch elbows, and feel what Kingsley 
wrote, namely, that " all men are brothers," it ought to be 
in God's house. The free pew^ therefore, is an absolute 
essential to such fellowship. 

It recognises the term " in Christ!' The truest frater- 
nity is not to be found with the ungodly. It is not to be 
expected that Mammon will claim kin with Poverty; or 
civilization consent to associate with heathenism. The 
church of God, however, should bring even these ex- 
tremes into fellowship. For, as Paul writes to the 
Galatians : " Ye are all the children of God by faith in 
Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized 
into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew 
nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither 
male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." 
Such was the mind of the Master. John Watson says : 
" Jesus realized that the tie which binds men together in 
life is not forged in the intellect, but in the heart. Love 
is the first, and the last, and the strongest bond in experi- 
ence. It conquers distance, outlives all changes, bears the 
strain of the most diverse opinions. . . Unity is possible 
wherever the current of love runs from Christ's heart 
through human hearts and back to Christ again." But 
who can imagine that Christ's prayer for his disciples, 
that they all may be one as he and his Father are one, 
will ever be answered while the rented-pew system of 



146 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

church administration remains? The story is told that 
Robert Ingersoll once went to church, and the wealthy 
man into whose pew they had put him stopped at the 
end and waited for Ingersoll to come out, that he might 
seat his family. But Ingersoll sat still. After sitting 
down in evident anger, the man wrote a note and passed 
it over to the pope of infidelity, saying, " I pay five hun- 
dred dollars for this pew." To this Ingersoll instantly 
scribbled the reply : " Cheap enough ; it is a good pew ! " 
We doubt the story, because it involves Ingersoll's pres- 
ence at church, but it well illustrates a point. We often 
hear it said that the man who pays for a pew has a better 
right in it than he who pays nothing. There are, how- 
ever, two answers to this claim^ First of all, will any 
man admit that his pew-rental is a business bargain 
of so much money for so much comfort? If so, where 
does Christ's gift come in, and where is the man's sacrifice 
to the cause? Again, is it Christian to stand on one's 
rights? We teach our children that brothers ought not 
always to stand on their rights, but to show the spirit of 
self-sacrifice in the interests of others. Should the blood- 
relation behave better than the blood-bought? If so, all 
our Christianity is in vain, and all our boasted brother- 
hood is but a show-bill published for the purpose of 
deceiving the people into supposing us to be what we are 
not. Wherever you find a thoroughgoing Christian, a 
man who reminds you of the Master, you will find one 
who will share his pew, and, if need be, surrender it alto- 
gether, for Christ's sake. Would that this spirit were uni- 
versal, and that we might sing truthfully the words of 
Louis M. Waterman : 

O Wondrous Brotherhood! 

Sweet bondage of the heart — 
Thy golden chains no power 

Hath might to tear apart ! 



THE RELATION OF PEW-RENTALS 147 

O Miracle of Love ! 

What marvel thou hast done; 
Ten thousand thousand lives 

In Christ shall be as one ! 

O Unity Supreme! 

Of Father, Spirit, Son — . 
In kindred mystery 

With Jesus we are one. 
Grant us, O Triune God; 

A fellowship like thine — 
A peace — pure, fathomless; 

A joy — serene, divine ! 

The free pew also anticipates the fellowship of heaven. 
The men who expect to live together hereafter ought to 
touch elbows, at least, here and now. You remember 
Paul wrote to the Ephesians concerning the Father, how 
in " the fulness of times he might gather together in one 
all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which 
are on earth." Certainly some closer fellowship here will 
make way for a sweeter fellowship there. Some years ago 
James Farrington went from Iowa Falls, Iowa, to New 
Brunswick, N. J., to visit his brother Patrick. They had 
not seen each other since 1853, and the meeting was one 
of such joy that the New York newspapers made mention 
of it, saying the neighbors in New Brunswick had never 
looked upon a more affecting scene than the meeting 
of these two men. Why such demonstrations of love? 
Why such overflow of sentiment? There is but one an- 
swer ; they were brothers. F'^orty-seven years before they 
had dwelt together and learned to love one another. If 
we are to meet in the hereafter, who questions that our 
meeting will be sweeter if on earth we have loved the 
fellowship of the saints, that fellowship in Christ which 
means the obliteration of every barrier, the equality of 
children of a common Father? Just so long as we are 



148 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

without the free pew — an institution which puts the high 
and the low, the rich and the poor, on a common basis in 
the house of God — we are without the conditions that 
conserve the fraternity which anticipates the fellowship 
of heaven. 

THE FREE PEW IS SCRIPTURAL 

It issues a common invitation to all classes. It makes 
good Solomon's proverb : " The rich and poor meet to- 
gether: the Lord is the maker of them all." In the 
opinion of the apostle James, poverty was no reason for 
relegating a man to the comer, behind a post, or under 
a footstool, any more than riches was a reason for giving 
a man the position of the best pew in the house. James 
uttered some very straight words tO' the ushers of his 
hour. It would be well to have them embossed and 
tacked up at the head of the aisles in every church, that 
they might be constantly before the usher : " My brethren, 
have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of 
glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto 
your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, 
and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment ; and ye 
have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say 
unto him. Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the 
poor. Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: 
are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become 
judges of evil thoughts? " James also assigned a reason 
for his words : *' Hath not God chosen the poor of this 
world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he 
hath promised to them that love him ? " 

You have heard the fable of the kind-hearted king, 
who, while hunting in a forest, found a blind orphaned 
boy living there like a beast. The boy's pitiable state 
touched the king's heart, and he took him to his home and 
taught him all that could be learned by the blind. When 



THE RELATION OF PEW-RENTALS 149 

he reached his twenty-first year, the king, who was also 
a great physician, restored his sight, and leading him 
into the palace, presented him to his nobles as his own 
son, commanding all to give him their honor and love. 
What lord then dare treat with indifference this adopted 
child? What brother in the house could despise or mal- 
treat him without offending royalty? How can any 
Christian man imagine himself above that one in the 
house of God, no matter how poor he is, or how neg- 
lected, when God has adopted him and introduced him 
into his household of faith? He is a child of the KING; 
worthy not only to share the best synagogue, if it be his 
pleasure, but he is to be privileged to sit with the Lamb 
himself upon the throne. 

We are not pleading for a social communism. We are 
not asking the rich to make social friends of those in 
whom they find no delight. Such a course might not be 
profitable, since there would be little of pleasure to either 
party. But, except the Bible be wrong, and Christ utterly 
misunderstood, the church of God presents the one place, 
and the Christianity of Jesus Christ the one plane, where 
men should meet and forget their differences of station 
and of cloth, and, despising the blood in their own 
veins, remember that they are alike bought by the blood 
of Jesus Christ, and in that blood are made brethren. 
Doctor Deems is right in declaring that, if any difference 
is made in escorting people to seats, let it be in favor 
of the poor. Not because they are poor, but because they 
are more sensitive, and therefore in need of the more 
cordial welcome. 

Christ was exceedingly careful to warn the Pharisees 
at this point. One day he was invited to a Pharisee's 
house to dinner, and " he put forth a parable to those 
which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out 
the chief rooms ; saying unto them, When thou art bidden 



150 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest 
room; lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden 
of him; and he that bade thee and him come and say to 
thee, Give this man place ; and thou begin with shame to 
take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and 
sit down in the lowest room ; that when he that bade thee 
cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher : then 
shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit 
at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall 
be abased ; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." 

Let us not forget God's custom in choosing men. 
When he wanted a leader for his people he took Moses, 
the despised Hebrew babe, and exalted him. When he 
needed a premier in Egypt he found that person in Joseph, 
the hated brother. When he wanted a king for the throne 
of Israel he passed by those of splendid stature, and 
selected David, the ruddy youth of the field. Henry Van 
Dyke truly remarks of his conduct : " He has made apos- 
tles and saints out of men and women that the world 
would have thrown away as rubbish; witness Peter, the 
weak and wayward; Mary Magdalene, the defiled; Zac- 
chseus, the worldly; Thomas, the despondent; Paul, the 
persecutor and blasphemer." Who can imagine these early 
church people making a distinction between the apostles 
of the faith because they were poor, and setting up chief 
seats for Nicodemus, Joseph and Lazarus, Mary and 
Martha, because they were well-to-do? It has often been 
affirmed, and we fear with some occasion, that one can 
determine the relative financial standing of the members 
of a church by studying the map of the ground floor of 
the building. But no one could have done that in the old 
First Church at Jerusalem. 

Again, the free pew is scriptural because it keeps the 
church-door open to Jesus Christ. When Christ had fin- 
ished his epistles to the seven churches of Asia he con- 



THE RELATION OF PEW-RENTALS I5I 

eluded by saying : " Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : 
if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come 
in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." To 
some of us this seems clearly to refer to his second appear- 
ance which is "without sin unto salvation." But those 
who interpret it as his attitude toward the local institution 
are often guilty of having practically excluded him by a 
pew-rental past his means. Do you not recall in that won- 
drous dream entitled '* How Christ Came to Church," the 
good man said : " Though there had been misgivings and 
questionings about our system of pew-rentals . . . the 
matter had not come home to me as a really serious ques- 
tion till Christ came to church on that morning. Judging 
by his dress and bearing, it was evident that were he to 
become a regular attendant, he could not afford the best 
pew in the house, and this was distressing to think of, 
since I knew from Scripture that he has long since been 
accorded the highest place in heaven, ' angels and au- 
thorities and powers being made subject unto him.' " 
And is not Jesus Christ a regular attendant at church ? If 
not, God pity the church from which he is absent, and 
cause us to remember that even touching that church he 
says : " Behold, I stand at the door and knock." 

Any fair interpretation of the Scripture is authority 
for the thought that any humble man who looks at the 
church of Jesus Christ with wistful eyes, and is afraid 
to enter because its pews are rented and he has not the 
price, is none other than Jesus Christ standing without 
and waiting; waiting to be invited to share, or rather, to 
have a place in his Father's house. In Victor Hugo's " Les 
Miserables " there is a paragraph which ought to profit 
every church in the land. His good bishop — who is the 
true Christian of the volume — addresses Jean Valjean, the 
ex-convict, saying: ''You need not tell me who you are. 
This is not my house ; it is the house of Christ. It does not 

L 



152 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

ask any comer whether he has a name, but whether He has 
an affliction. You are suffering; you are hungry and 
thirsty ; be welcome. And do not thank me ; do not tell me 
that I take you in my house. This is the home of no man, 
except him who needs an asylum. I tell you, who are a 
traveler, that you are more at home here than I ; whatever 
is here is yours." The boasted twentieth-century and 
Protestant religion is much of it put to positive shame 
by a speech like that. 

One of the most popular books of recent times is Shel- 
don's " In His Steps." Who can ever forget the scene 
in that First Church when Henry Maxwell finished his 
sermon on the text : " For even hereunto were ye called : 
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an ex- 
ample, that ye should follow his steps " ? The quartet 
had risen to sing, '' All for Jesus, all my being's ransomed 
pow'rs," when the congregation was startled by a voice, 
and the next instant a pale-faced fellow was making his 
way from his place under the gallery to the open space 
in front of the pulpit, and asking the privilege of speak- 
ing. Then he told his story of no work, of having lost 
his wife, of having sent his little girl to stay with a 
printer's family until he could support her. As he went 
on telling how he had to grapple with poverty, how he 
had seen his wife die of starvation, he said : " I heard 
some people singing at a church prayer-meeting the other 
night : 

All for Jesus! All for Jesus! 
All my being's ransomed pow'rs : 

All my thoughts and words and doings, 
All my days and all my hours ! 

and I kept wondering, as I sat on the steps outside, what 
they meant by it? It seems to me there is an awful lot of 
trouble in the world that somehow would not exist if all 
the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. 



THE RELATION OF PEW-RENTALS 153 

I suppose I do not understand, but what would Jesus do ? 
What do you mean by following in his steps? It seems 
to me sometimes as if the people in the city churches had 
good clothes, and nice houses to live in, and money to 
spend for luxuries, and could go away on summer vaca- 
tions and all that, while people outside of the churches, 
thousands of them, I mean, walk the streets for jobs or 
die in tenement houses, and never have a piano or a pic- 
ture in the house, and grow up in misery and drunkenness 
and sin." At that point he grew paler still, and, lurching 
forward, he fell heavily to the floor. The services were 
at an end, but the question remained in Henry Maxwell's 
mind, "What would Jesus do?"; and he turned himself 
about to follow the Master's steps as never before. You 
remember the revolutions it wrought. Who can raise this 
question, "What would Jesus do?" on the subject of 
pew-rentals without knowing instantly the answer? If 
Jesus would make them free, do you not shut him out if 
you put a price upon them? We need to read often the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, and remember that in 
the judgment we shall stand or fall according to our treat- 
ment of his lowly friends, for inasmuch as we have done 
it unto the least of these, we have done it unto him. 

THE FREE PEW IS SUCCESSFLTL 

It elicits the best financial support. Wherever this plan 
has been adopted in the church whose spiritual life makes 
its adoption a necessity, it has solved many financial prob- 
lems. In illustration think of Spurgeon's Tabernacle; 
the Tremont Temple, Boston; Grace Temple, Philadel- 
phia. These are three of the largest institutions of the 
respective cities, and yet they have existed without pew- 
rentals. Even where the pew-rentals exist nominally they 
are ordinarily not sufficient for the support of the church, 
and the balance must be made good by free-will offerings. 



154 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

Some time ago the " Ram's Horn " had an article upon 
this subject, in which Mr. Charles H. Mills, pastor of the 
Pilgrim Congregational Church, Cleveland, Ohio, told 
his experience of nine years v^ith a free church. In that 
time its membership had grown from three hundred to 
eight hundred and forty-eight. Its gifts had been most 
generous at home and abroad. It had supported reading- 
room, gymnasium, recreation-rooms, daily kindergarten, 
sewing-school, young men's club, a course of educational 
lectures and concerts. At Owensboro, Ky., some years 
ago, Doctor Hale began in the court-house with four hun- 
dred people and not a cent of property. These had come 
out of the leading church in the city, a division having 
occurred on the question of the church's duty to amuse- 
ments, distilling of liquors, operating saloons, etc. At 
the end of four years they had a membership of eleven 
hundred and had built a house seating at least twenty-five 
hundred in the very heart of the city. They had con- 
tributed largely to missions at home and abroad, and their 
entire work had been accomplished apart from pew- 
rentals. When that grand man, George Miiller, was 
called from Teignmouth to Bristol, after days of earnest 
consideration of the call he replied : " I will accept the call 
on the condition that the pew-rents shall be abolished." 
The eminent success of his work is known the world 
around, and we believe is praised in heaven. 

Again, the free pew gives the greater satisfaction. The 
objection urged to it that it breaks up family sittings is 
not evidenced. He would be a blundering usher indeed 
who paid no attention to having a family sit together, 
and as far as compatible with the interests of others, in 
the same place every Sunday. Such an arrangement 
does provide against offending the poor, putting up a 
w^all in the way of the laboring classes, and worst of all, 
relegating to the gallery hundreds of men and women who 



THE RELATION OF PEW-RENTALS 155 

once expended thousands upon God's cause, but who 
through poverty have been left too Httle to pay the price 
of a pew. In the " Little Masterpieces of American Wit 
and Humor," a story is told of Mr. Dickson, a colored 
barber in a large New England town. One of his cus- 
tomers said : '* I believe you are connected with the 
church in Elm Street ? " " No, sah ; not at all." " What, 
are you not a member of the African Church?" '* Not 
dis year, sah." " When, and why did you leave their 
communion?" "Well, I'll tell you, sah; it was just like 
dis. I jined de church in good faith; I gave ten dollars 
toward the stated gospil de first year, and de church 
people call me ' Brudder Dickson ' ; de secon' year my 
business not so good, and I gib only five dollars. That 
year the people call me ' Mr. Dickson.' Well, sah, de 
third year I feel berry poor ; had sickness in my f ambly ; 
I didn't gib noffin' for preachin.' Well, sah, arter dat 
they call me * dat old nigger Dickson,' and I left 'em." 
Christ can approve of no condition in a church that would 
ever make it possible for a man who, in the days of finan- 
cial success, sacrificed grandly for the cause to surrender 
his seat in the house of God because in his becoming less 
able to pay the rental a more prosperous brother pur- 
chases it away from him. Think of a church in which 
the pews are put up and auctioned off to the highest 
bidder! Yet with this very act we have been familiar. 
Of transcendent importance is the fact that the free 
pew is more successful in soul- winning. Let no man 
imagine that to declare pews free insures the regenera- 
tion of those who sit in them. A dead church may de- 
clare for what it will, and nothing comes of the declara- 
tion. But when the church is moved by the Spirit of 
Jesus Christ, who so loved the world that he gave his 
life for it, and in that spirit is willing to make sacrifice 
of sittings that souls may be reached, God gives such a 



156 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

church success in soul-winning. There is no sanctuary 
so attractive to the unsaved as the one wherein they find 
themselves loved, and wherein the people are willing to 
put themselves out that they may make their acquaint- 
ance, and instruct them in the knowledge of the Lord. 
A cordial handshake has been the beginning of many a 
man's salvation, and the sharing of a pew with the 
stranger presents the very best opportunity of speaking 
to him about his soul. Pleasant as it is, therefore, for a 
man to sit with his family on the Sabbath, and desirable 
also, he should willingly sacrifice this privilege if by so 
doing he can reach an unsaved man. Think of what it 
means to him if you lead him to the Lamb of God ! Think 
of what it may mean to his house! Aye, think of what 
it means to heaven! The human mind has never yet 
imagined what it means to God when the recording angel 
writes down a new name in the Lamb's Book of Life. 
Do you not recall how when the steamer Atlantic struck 
ground and went down the message of destruction was 
telegraphed over the land? On that ill-fated steamer 
was a man from Detroit, Mich., and from him was re- 
ceived a message which contained but a single word, and 
yet it thrilled thousands and thousands of the land, for 
that word was " Saved " ! Oh, the joy in his own house ! 
Oh, the rejoicing among his friends and acquaintances 
there! That is the word that thrills heaven as no other 
word known to men or angels can! Throw open your 
doors and, with outstretched hands and smiling faces, 
make men welcome in the house of God, and then they 
may find the way to the heart of God. 

The free pew sustains a definite relation to the peren- 
nial revival. 



THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY TO THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER XI 

THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY TO THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

THERE are two ways of rendering John 5 : 39 — the 
King James Version : '' Search the scriptures ; for in 
them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are they which 
testify of me " ; and the Revised Version : " Ye search 
the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have 
eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of 
me." A study of the original text compels the conviction 
that the King James Version has much in its favor. The 
words of Jesus are more likely a command than an af- 
firmation, and so furnish a starting-point for what shall 
be said in this chapter. 

It may be a relief to some people to know that just 
now that command of Jesus has no formidable opponent. 
A late pope did the extraordinary thing of blessing 
Bible study. At the very time when Romanists in Chili 
were engaged in burning Bibles, the great " Head of the 
Church " beside the Tiber was pronouncing his blessing 
upon Scripture study, calling for at least a quarter of an 
hour each day for this special exercise. To the Protest- 
ant world this announcement brought special joy, since 
they knew the privilege — the unspeakable spiritual privi- 
lege — which it would bring to that great body of people, 
who by pope and priests have been kept in crass ignor- 
ance of God's revealed will. To Romanist it is both glad- 
ness and grace since such a privilege contains the promise 
of that intelligent and spiritual progress which has char- 
acterized Bible students in all ages. Some of us are 
little concerned, from a personal standpoint, as to what 

159 



l60 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

the pope says upon such a subject, since we do not receive 
our orders from him, or regard with any special esteem 
his boast of authority. But it is of the utmost concern 
that our Lord himself — the soul's true Master — should 
say, " Search the Scriptures," for he spake with authority. 
His every wish ought to be our will ; his every word is the 
Christian's clear command. It is to be supposed also that 
our Saviour understood the intimate relation between 
searching the Scriptures and all those blessings expressed 
by the biblical words " salvation " and " sanctification." 

In order to elucidate our theme, we propose three ques- 
tions : 

WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 

Joseph Parker says, " As for defining what is meant by 
' the word of God/ we must remember that there is no 
definition. No man can define God, or truth, or life, or 
love; they are original and undefinable terms." True, 
and yet there are some things said in the Scriptures con- 
cerning themselves that go far toward the answering of 
this question. As a man knows his own motive better 
than his neighbor can, as the rays of light tell the story 
of the sun, so the Holy Spirit — the author of the word — 
can answer, and, we believe, has answered the ques- 
tion, " What are the Scriptures ? " Then let us be silent 
while he speaks to us concerning the Scriptures by their 
own sacred texts. In other words, what say they of 
themselves ? 

They claim to he God's inspired word. " All scripture 
is given by inspiration of God," or, " Every scripture — 
God-inspired." There is a vast difference of opinion as 
to what this means. But when one hears God promise to 
be with Moses' " mouth," and hears Moses affirm that he 
gave to the people only that which God had given him; 
when one hears David saying: ''The Spirit of the Lord 



THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY l6l 

Spake by me, and his word was in my tongue '' ; when one 
hears Isaiah say that the angel cleansed his lips with 
a coal, that the words of God might be taken upon them ; 
he becomes convinced as to what the word of God means. 
When one Hstens to the major prophets and the minor 
prophets affirming, " The word of the Lord came unto 
us,'* his conviction of inspiration deepens. When Paul 
attributes the very words of the Scriptures to the Spirit, 
remarking, " As the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye will 
hear his voice," etc. (Heb. 3:7), and when Peter af- 
firms : " Prophecy came not in old times by the will of 
man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost"; he knows at least the opinion of the 
most prominent apostles. But when Jesus adds his testi- 
mony that '' God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets " 
(Luke I : 70), it would seem past dispute. For our part 
we join heartily with Charles Spurgeon in saying : " The 
Bible is the writing of the living God. Each letter was 
penned with an almighty finger ; each word in it dropped 
from the everlasting lips; each sentence was dictated 
by the Holy Spirit. Albeit Moses was employed to write 
the histories with his fiery pen, God guided that pen. 
It may be that David touched his harp, and let sweet 
psalms of melody drop from his fingers, but God moved 
his hands over the living strings of his golden harp. 
Solomon sang canticles of love, and gave forth words of 
consummate wisdom, but God directed his lips, and made 
the preacher eloquent. If I follow the thundering Nahum, 
when the horses plow the waters ; or Habakkuk, when he 
sees the tents of Cushan in affliction; if I read Malachi, 
when the earth is burning like an oven ; if I turn to the 
smooth page of John, who tells of love; or the rugged 
chapters of Peter, who speaks of fire devouring God's 
enemies; if I turn aside to Jude, who launches forth 
anathemas upon the foes of God, everywhere I find 



l62 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

•God Speaking ; it is God's voice, not man's ; the words are 
God's words, the words of the Eternal, the Invisible, the 
Almighty, the Jehovah of ages. This Bible is God's 
Bible ; and when I see it I seem to hear a voice springing 
up from it, saying, * I am the Book of God ; study my 
page, for I was penned by God; love me, for he is my 
author, and you will see him visible and manifest every- 
where.' " 

They claim to he God's power of salvation. It was of 
the Old Testament Paul wrote to Timothy, reminding 
him of the fact that from a child he had known the 
Holy Scriptures, " which," Paul adds, '' are able to make 
you wise unto salvation " (2 Tim. 3 : 15). It was of the 
Old Testament Christ must have been speaking when he 
said : " Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have 
eternal life ; and they are they which testify of me." It 
was of his own preaching he remarked : " The words that 
I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life " (John 
6 : 63). On another occasion he declares : " Verily, verily 
I say unto you, if a man keep my sayings he shall never 
see death." Paul also, in Romans i : 16, writes regard- 
ing that portion of the Scriptures known as " the gos- 
pel " : " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it 
is the power of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
lieveth." When the faithful few are asked by their Lord, 
whether they also would turn back from following him, 
Peter responds, " Lord to whom shall we go ? thou hast 
the words of eternal life" (John 6 : 68). 

They also claim to he God's eternal revelation. The 
Master himself said, " The scripture cannot be broken " 
(John 10 : 35). And again, " Verily I say unto you. Till 
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no 
wise pass from the law." He reaffirmed, therefore, the 
language of Psalm 117 : 2, "The truth of the Lord en- 
dureth forever." We meet not a few people who seem 



THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY 163 

to agree with Rollo Ogden that the battle has gone against 
the Bible as the world's only great literature. Some would 
even advance beyond his position and claim that the battle 
has gone against it as inspired literature. It is not long 
since Dr. Lyman Abbott was delighting the satellites of a 
certain great university by declaring the old theory of 
Bible inspiration doomed. But Theodore Parker is dead ; 
and the Bible lives ! Why be greatly concerned for Ab- 
bott's speech ? This book has been able to make good its 
claim of '' an enduring revelation " ; the plain people who 
have familiarized themselves with its pages, and the hum- 
ble students among our great scholars, have no fear that 
it is about to pass away. With Dr. John Cummings they 
remember that " The empire of the Caesars is gone ; the 
legions of Rome are moldering in the dust ; the avalanches 
that Napoleon hurled upon Europe have melted away; 
the pride of the Pharaohs is fallen; the pyramids they 
raised to be their tombs are sinking every day in the 
desert sands; Tyr^ is a rock for bleaching fishermen's 
nets ; Sidon has scarcely left a rock behind ; but the word 
of God still survives. All things which threatened to ex- 
tinguish it have only aided it; and it proves every day 
how transient is the noblest monument that man can 
build, how enduring is the least word that God has spoken. 
Tradition has dug for it a grave ; intolerance has lighted 
for it many a faggot ; many a Judas has betrayed it with 
a kiss ; many a Peter has denied it with an oath ; many a 
Demas has forsaken it ; but the word of God still endures." 
This prepares us only the better for our second ques- 
tion: 

WHY SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES? 

One would not think of attempting all the possible an- 
swers to this question. Let us make mention of a few 
of the more important ones. 



l54 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

First, search the Scriptures, because they are the 
world's best literature. Even the critics would confess 
that Moses had no match; that David was the greatest 
Hterary Hght of his times, competent to pass upon all the 
literature then existing. David affirms concerning the 
Scriptures, with which he was familiar, that they had 
made him wiser than his enemies, that they gave him 
more understanding than his teachers, and endued him 
with wisdom above the ancients. (Ps. 119 : 98-100.) Of 
recent men of literature, who is more highly regarded 
than Ruskin ? Think of his words : " I opened my oldest 
Bible just now . . . yellow with age, and flexible, but not 
unclean, with much use, except that the lower corners 
of the pages at chapter seven of the first book of Kings, 
and chapter eight of Deuteronomy are worn somewhat 
thin and dark, the learning of these two chapters have 
caused me much pain. My mother's list of chapters with 
which, every syllable learned accurately, she established 
my soul in life, has fallen out of it, as follows : * Exodus 
15 and 20 ; 2 Samuel 1,5, 17 to the end ; i Kings 8 ; Psalms 
23, 32, 90, 103, 112, 119, 139; Proverbs 2, 3, 8, 12; 
Isaiah 58; Matthew 5, 6, 7; Acts 26 \ 1 Corinthians 13, 
1 5 ; James 4 ; Revelation 5 and 6.' And truly though I 
have picked up the elements of a little further knowledge 
... in mathematics, meteorology, and the like, in after- 
life, and I owe not a little to the teachings of many people, 
this maternal installation of my mind in that property 
of chapters I count very confidently the most precious and, 
on the whole, the one essential part of my education." 

It is one of those blunders that public sentiment will 
not much longer brook, that the Bible has been cast out 
of public institutions of learning through the influence of 
Rome. If that late pope's enunciation has not made its 
restoration possible, the very demands of scholarship 
will eventually reinstate that volume which Walter Scott 



THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY 165 

describes " the only book " ; and of which Theodore 
Parker was compelled to admit, '' It is the purest fertil- 
izing stream that ever flowed through our desert world." 
Huxley, the agnostic, you will remember, said, " It is in- 
dispensable to a sound ethical education." And better 
men have more lately declared that it is absolutely neces- 
sary to the first attainments of literary knowledge. When 
one compares the Bible with other books, he appreciates 
the occasion of Lorimer's language : " All others are as 
stars in comparison with the sun, as the cold luster of the 
pole in comparison with the brilliancy of the tropics, as the 
opaque whiteness of the pearl in comparison with the 
transparent beauty of the diamond." 

Again, search the Scriptures, because they are worthy of 
more than a superficial study. There are not a few people 
to-day, who, mainly for social reasons, skim over every 
new volume, and skip through every monthly received at 
the public library. Their purpose is to shine in society 
and insure for themselves a cheap reputation. No one 
seriously objects, since, after all, many of these books and 
magazine articles are not worthy deep research and seri- 
ous meditation. But who shall say the Scriptures ought 
to be so regarded ? When Jesus said, '^ Search the scrip- 
tures," he emphasized their value ! The woman with the 
lighted candle searched her house because the lost coin 
was a valuable one; Laban searched Jacob's tent because 
he believed his gods to be there; the Berean brethren 
rightly estimated the Old Testament, and so when they 
heard Paul and Silas in their synagogue, '' They received 
the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the 
scriptures daily, whether those things were so." Paul 
put his approval upon this method of Scripture reading 
when he wrote to Timothy : " Give diligence to present 
thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not 
to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth." 



l66 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

If we are to have the wisdom of the word, it will come 
only as a result of diligent search. One who had watched 
Robert M'Cheyne read his Bible declared that he pored 
over its pages just exactly as a money-hunter might search 
through sands known to contain gold nuggets, and ever 
and anon brought up from the depths of Scripture some 
marvelous find which seemed to delight his soul, as the 
Kohinoor rejoiced the heart of the finder. 

Search the Scriptures also, because they throw light on 
life's pathway. The characteristic of the One Hundred 
and Nineteenth Psalm is its many references to the in- 
trinsic worth of the word. You recall how the author 
says : " Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light 
unto my path " ; and again, " The entrance of thy words 
giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.'' 
Other books may make contribution to the solution of 
life's problems, but this book provides a perfect explana- 
tion of the same. As Doctor Behrends remarked : " It is 
light. It is the sun of the soul, ministering illumination 
and inspiration. It is represented as the fixed and im- 
movable center of divine truth, ' forever settled in heaven. 
It provides the basis of an infallible certainty; just as the 
sun, by its invisible but constant and efficient energy 
secures the stability of the planetary system.' " 

Those who have read the Life of A. J. Gordon will re- 
call what he said concerning the sufficiency of the Scrip- 
tures to accomplish Christian character. In speaking of the 
Puritan family whence he w^as descended, Gordon says: 
" We recall especially one old grandmother, hid away on a 
back farm with but two books, the Bible and Bunyan, 
who tended and nurtured a spiritual life fairly efiflorescent 
in its devotion, its sweetness, its humility. In extreme 
age interest in the Lord's work never dimmed. Often 
did her grandson, coming back to the old home in the 
summertime, marvel at the depths, the richness, the 



THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY 167 

fulness of this hidden life." And yet there was no occa- 
sion for his marvel when one remembers what springs 
of life are open in this sacred volume. 

Again, the Scriptures declare the light of another world. 
It is the only revelation we have of the life to come ; the 
only picture of that heaven which is to be our home. 
Man's longing for another existence is an argument for 
his immortality; but the sacred Scriptures stand alone in 
their revelation of that life. Jesus Christ also impressed 
the men and women, with whom he was in intimate 
association, that he was fresh from heaven; when he 
spake of it, it was as a traveler talks of the house from 
which he had come but yesterday, to the joy and love 
of which he would return to-morrow. To Jesus heaven 
was " my Father's house." The " mansions " were the 
work of his hands, pictured for the consolation and light 
of his own sadness and of the disciples' suffering. Those 
words were in perfect accord with all the Scriptures have 
said concerning the same. The outlines of the Old Tes- 
tament are embodied in the New. We look not only on 
" houses not made with hands," on mansions — a multi- 
tude, but on " the holy city coming down from God out of 
heaven " — a city that lieth foursquare ; a city that exceeds 
in splendor the wildest flights of the human imagination, 
and in size the combined cities of ten thousand thousand 
such worlds as ours. Such a city the Scriptures declare 
to be our eventual home. If a man will keenly read a 
will, and earnestly study its every sentence to discover 
what his inheritance is, why should a people, knowing 
the instrument which describes and bequeaths to them 
everlasting possession, neglect its study ? 

Within a few years past the magazines of the land 
have made Helen Keller well known to the whole wide 
world. As men have read the writings of this genius 
they have not been able to understand how one shut 

M 



1 68 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

out from the whole world by deafness, dumbness, and 
blindness, having no medium of communication save 
through the touch, could ever have thought and written 
as she thinks and writes. I often wonder how much of her 
wisdom may come down directly from above as God's 
compensation for lost faculties. These beautiful words 
she spake many years ago : " You know I have lost my 
loving friend, Bishop Brooks. Oh, it is very hard to bear 
this great sorrow — hard to believe that I shall never 
more hold his gentle hand while he tells me about God 
and love and goodness ! Oh, his beautiful words ! They 
come back to me with sweet, new meaning. He once said 
to me : * Helen, dear child ' — that is what he always called 
me — " we must trust our heavenly Father always, and 
look beyond our present pain and disappointment with 
a hopeful smile.' And in the midst of my sorrow I seem 
to hear his glad voice say: ' Helen, you SHALL see me 
again in that beautiful world we used to talk about in 
my study. Let not your heart be troubled.' Then heaven 
seems very near, since a tender, loving friend awaits us 
there." Yes, the grass withereth; this world passeth, 
but God's heaven is, and his heaven abides. 

WHO SHALL SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES? 

This question could be answered in the language of 
the small boy's petition, " everybody in this world." Such 
an answer would save us the trouble of specifying, but 
also deny us the advantage of the specifying process. 
There are three or four classes upon whose study of the 
Scriptures the perennial revival is dependent. 

First of all, those who profess^ to teach their truths. 
When Jesus said, " Search the scriptures," he was face to 
face with Pharisees who prided themselves upon their 
knowledge of the word. Hillel had died in the days of 
Christ's boyhood, and the Jews boasted a flaming knowl- 



THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY 169 

edge of the Scriptures as a result of his influence. They 
reckoned some of those who were then members of the 
Sanhedrin as the bulwarks of their wisdom and the glory 
of their law. They had a common saying, " He that has 
the words of the law has eternal life." And yet Christ 
called upon them to " search the scriptures " that they 
might do better than merely know parts of it by rote; 
that they might see its hidden meaning and understand 
its spiritual significance! 

The reputed teachers of this hour are equally in need 
of the Master's word. We do^ not object that the theo- 
logical seminaries of this country glorify Greek and Latin ; 
that they lay stress upon the preparation and delivery 
of discourse; that they demand hard study for history, 
sacred and profane, and emphasize theology, dogmatic 
and systematic ; but we would have them insist upon the 
earnest study of God's word in one's mother tongue. It 
is but a short time since Doctor Strong, of Rochester, 
speaking of the young theological students of that semi- 
nary, said : " Almost all of them are college graduates, 
and they are men of good natural intelligence. Yet I 
have been pained to find in many of these cases that 
their relation of experience makes no mention either of 
sin or of Christ. The two foci of the Christian ellipse 
they seem to be ignorant of." What is this but a result 
of indifference to Scripture study on the part of teachers ? 
Those at whose feet these young men have sat, in the 
churches whence they came, have too often essayed to 
be critics of the word rather than instructors in the same. 
This has come about, not only because the assumption of 
the attitude of the critic is supposed by superficial think- 
ers to be equal with scholarship, but because the preacher 
himself finds it easier to rehash the opinions of these so- 
called learned men than to sound the depths and explore 
the heights of the sacred word. But the future of the 



170 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

church in its relations to the perennial revival is further 
mortgaged by the fact that all theological seminaries 
are not correcting, for their students, this sad deficiency. 
It is a dark day for the Bible, and that evangelism which 
is ever dependent upon the same, when theological semi- 
naries adopt as a text-book the writing of some such 
man as against the plain teachings of Scripture. It is 
in vain to instruct men in the speculations of the unin- 
spired, and expect them in turn to teach the people the 
Holy Scriptures. If Jesus were back in the world to-day 
and were preparing afresh his disciples for their work, 
he would have equal occasion to emphasize the words, 
" Search the scriptures." Paul, in writing to the Gala- 
tians, said, " Let him that is taught in the word com- 
municate unto him that teacheth in all good things." The 
minister is the one man concerning whom inquirers ought 
to be compelled to say, as Nicodemus did to his Master, 
" We know that thou art a teacher come from- God." 
Joshua I : 8 contains the motto for the modern Bible 
training school : " This book of the law shall not depart 
out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day 
and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all 
that is written herein : for then thou shalt make thy way 
prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." Is 
it any marvel that many a modern product of the semi- 
nary is failing, when Sunday after Sunday he stands be- 
fore his people and speaks what he calls a sermon, which, 
when it appears in print, is found to contain but a single 
reference to the Scripture, and that the text? 

F. B. Meyer says : " I shall never forget seeing Charles 
Studd early one November morning, clothed in flannels 
to protect him from the cold, and rejoicing that the Lord 
had awakened him at 4 a. m. to study the word. He told 
me then that it was his custom to trust the Lord to call 
him and enable him to rise." It is little wonder that 



THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY I7I 

Studd succeeded in showing men the way of life when 
he gave so much of his time to searching the Scriptures. 
,Would-be teachers of these truths should do one of two 
things; either familiarize themselves with them, work 
their way into the wealth of them, look down into the 
depths of them, or else step aside and let those fill their 
places who are willing to pay the price for Scripture 
knowledge — the price that Paul named to Timothy. 

Every saved man should study the Scriptures. The 
revival for which we pray depends in no small meas- 
ure upon Scripture-instructed laymen. Philip was able 
quickly to lead the Ethiopian to the Lord, and speedily 
into the baptismal waters, because he was so well ac- 
quainted with the Book. It is doubtful whether his 
ability to preach so that " the people with one accord gave 
heed unto those things which he spake " and Samaria 
enjoyed a great revival, is to be regarded beyond that 
which he displayed when he sat beside the Ethiopian and, 
by the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, showed him the way 
of salvation. To raise up a generation of such men is to 
gospelize the age. Bible classes, instructed by masters of 
the word, and Bible training-schools, presided over by 
men who know the book — these are the demands of the 
hour for our Master's cause ! 

And yet again, the sinner should study the Scriptures. 
The very difficulty of the present-day revival, temporary 
or perennial, is in that lack of Bible knowledge which is 
coming more and more to characterize the unregenerate in 
the community. Our fathers preached to the descendants 
of the Puritans — a Bible-instructed public. Their ser- 
mons were not, therefore, delivered in an unknown tongue. 
Their unregenerate auditors were able to say concerning 
the sermons, saturated with Scripture references, what 
the people at Pentecost remarked : " We hear every man 
in our own languaige wherein we were born." With no 



172 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

Bible in the public schools; with no family altar in a 
majority of so-called Christian homes; with critics of 
the word in so many pulpits, the prophecy of Amos has 
approached literal fulfilment : " Behold, the days come, 
saith the Lord Jehovah, that I will send a famine in the 
land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but 
of hearing the words of Jehovah. And they shall wander 
from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; 
they shall run to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, 
and shall not find it." 

Go into your great universities and put a few questions 
of the simplest and most straightforward kind to the stu- 
dents, and you will soon find what they know of the 
Scriptures ; go into your high schools, and into the graded 
schools and repeat the same, and it will be easy to realize 
why men are so hard to reach ; why even the young seem 
no longer susceptible to the truths of God's word. Dr. 
L. W. Munhall is authority for the following : *' In an 
eighth-grade room in a Minneapolis public school, where 
the pupils were reading Evangeline, they were asked to 
tell the meaning of the lines, 

And crowed the cock, with the selfsame 
Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter. 

Twenty-two answers were submitted, and only one 
was correct." " A freshman class in English in an 
Indiana college was recently assigned the book of Job 
as the subject for an essay. During the following week 
the librarian had several calls for the ' Book of Job,' the 
applicant in each instance stating that he could not find it 
at any of the bookstores." " In the Northwestern Uni- 
versity, a Methodist school, ninety-six men and women, 
mostly from the higher classes, were examined. Thirty- 
six could not define the Pentateuch. Forty did not know 
the book of Jude was in the New Testament. Thirty- 



THE RELATION OF BIBLE STUDY 1 73 

three could not name the patriarchs of the Old Testament. 
Fifty-one could not name one of the judges. Forty-nine 
could not name three kings of Israel. Forty- four could 
not name three prophets. Twenty could not write a beati- 
tude. Sixty-five could not write a verse from Romans. 
For judges they named Solomon, Jeremiah, Daniel, and 
Lazarus. For the prophets they named Matthew, Luke, 
Herod, and Ananias." 

It was easy to lead the Ethiopian to the Lord Christ 
because he was a student of the Scriptures. Philip found 
him immersed in the gospel of Isaiah. To bring back 
Scripture study is to make soul-winning easy. Doctor 
Behrends has sagely remarked : " Salvation is the burden 
of Scripture. Everything else is subordinate. Scripture 
discloses the nature, the necessity, the source, the condi- 
tions, the means, the present and future fruits of eternal 
life. I am not to go to them for chronology, nor for 
science, nor even for my history, but to be made wise 
unto salvation. That is the path upon which their light 
was made and meant to shine. And upon that path 
no other light does shine." The problem, then, in the 
perennial revival, is in great part, at least, the problem of 
bringing the whole public back to an earnest study of the 
book. 



THE RELATION OF GIVING TO THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER XII 

THE RELATION OF GIVING TO THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

AMINE is only " worked out " when it yields unprof- 
itable ore, or no ore. The second chapter of Acts, 
into which we have descended so often in the course of 
this volume, has not yet failed to repay our pains. Going 
into it again, we find it ready to yield valuable contri- 
bution to the subject, " Giving and the Perennial Re- 
vival," for therein we read : " All that believed were 
together, and had all things common ; and they sold their 
possessions and goods, and parted them tO' all, accord- 
ing as any man had need. . . And the Lord added to 
them day by day those that were saved." It is not claimed 
that the contributions of these Christians are related to 
the accessions to the church as cause to effect, but no 
one will question that giving, on the part of God's peo- 
ple, was one of the factors in this continuous revival; 
perhaps all will concede that it was a most important one. 
In such an opinion we are confirmed by a further study 
in Acts. In the fourth and fifth chapters it is recorded: 
'' The multitude of them that believed were of one heart 
and soul: and not one of them said that aught of the 
things which he possessed was his own ; but they had all 
things common. . . For as many as were possessors of 
lands or houses sold them, and brought the price of the 
things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet ; 
and distribution was made unto each, according as any 
one had need. . . And believers were the more added to 
the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." 

The sample features of this first New Testament church 

177 



178 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

profoundly impress all good students of the Scriptures; 
and to pass over the relation that giving there sustained 
to the perennial revival would be to ignore the evident 
mind of the Holy Ghost. In the elaboration of this 
theme let us think of the grace of giving, the gospel 
of giving, and the God of revivals, 

THE GRACE OF GIVING 

Inspiration names ''giving'' a grace. Paul, in his 
Second Epistle to the Corinthians (8 : 7), says to the 
members of that church : "As ye abound in everything, in 
faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all earnest- 
ness, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this 
grace also." '' This grace " is the " liberality " which had 
characterized them in their offerings, concerning which 
he bore them witness that " according to their power. . . 
yea and beyond their power, they gave of their own ac- 
cord." When writing to the Romans, the same apostle 
mentions " giving " as worthy a place with '' prophecy," 
*' ministry," " teaching," " exhorting," saying, " He that 
giveth, let him do it with liberality" (12 : 8). If all 
graces found their highest expression in the character 
of Christ, let it be remembered that chief among them 
was this grace of giving. " For ye know the grace of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for 
your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty 
might become rich " (2 Cor. 8:9). " The grace " of our 
Lord Jesus Christ is the capital grace of every Christian 
who possesses the same. 

This grace originates in regeneration. It cannot be 
claimed that all unregenerate men are stingy souls ; nor yet 
that all regenerate men are generous spirits, but it can be 
successfully shown that all Spirit-begotten men are quick- 
ened in benevolence by the new birth. When Paul writes 
regarding the liberality of the Corinthians, he assign^ 



THE RELATION OF GIVING I79 

it not to a nature, naturally generous ; on the contrary, he 
reveals the relation of the new birth to- benevolence by 
saying : " First they gave their own selves to the Lord, 
and to us through the will of God" (2 Cor. 8:5). It 
matters little how loud one may be in his professions of 
loyalty to Christ ; only let it be known that he is penurious, 
and the public, in the church and out, will question his 
conversion. Familiar as that public is with how Christ 
surrendered up all — all honor, all riches, all comfort — to 
complete his great gift to men, it demands a kindred spirit 
on the part of the professed follower of the Nazarene, 
and is likely to twit the covetous and greedy, with the 
text : "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is 
none of his." Evidently Ananias and Sapphira were mem- 
bers of the old First Church at Jerusalem, but when they 
attempted to make a show of Christianity by professing 
great liberality, while practising, in secret, commercial 
economy, they fell under the condemnation of their fel- 
low Christians, and more serious still, under the condem- 
nation of the Holy Spirit. On his own confession Zac- 
chseus must have been both close-fisted and oppressive 
before his regeneration. When, however, he received the 
Lord Jesus, generosity displaced greed, and he gave back 
to the world four times as much as he had ever taken 
from it by false accusation. There are a number of 
scriptural tests of one's regeneration. John, in his First 
Epistle, makes mention of three or four of these, and of 
them this one is prominent : *' Hereby know we love, be- 
cause he laid down his life for us : and we ought to lay 
down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the 
world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and 
shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the 
love of God abide in him ? My little children, let us not 
love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and 
truth" (3 : 16-18). 



l80 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

This grace is accentiLated by the enduement of the 
Spirit. There were many disciples before the day of 
Pentecost; liberal giving, however, appeared only after 
the Holy Ghost had come upon them. We may discuss 
the question as to whether a stingy man has ever been 
saved, but no one ever thought of discussing the ques- 
tion as to whether a stingy man had ever been Spirit- 
filled. In fact, there is such an incongruity between the 
practice of stinginess and the infilling of the Spirit that 
few parsimonious souls have ever had the temerity to 
make such a profession. Men commonly believe that 
George Miiller was Spirit-filled, and ground that opinion, 
in part surely, upon his splendid liberality. Among other 
evidences that John Wesley was Spirit-filled is the fact 
that he spent no more when his income was $2,500 per 
annum than when he received but $250. The increase 
went wholly to the service of the Lord. None dispute 
that Lady Huntington was Spirit-filled, because her 
$500,000 upon the altar of God was good evidence, while 
the sale of her jewels that she might erect chapels for the 
poor, the sacrifice of her residence and the dismissal of 
her liveried servants, that God might get the more, were 
indisputable arguments. The songs of love to the Lord 
sung by Frances Ridley Havergal have about them the 
very breath of the Spirit-filled, but when she makes the 
couplet. 

Take my silver and my gold, 
Not a mite would I withhold, 

more than sentiment by packing up every piece of silver 
and gold, including a jewel cabinet fit for a countess, 
dispatching all to the church missionary society to be sold 
and invested in foreign missions, and adds, " I never 
packed a box with such pleasure," she provides a proof 
that will persuade most men. Any grace worthy to be 



THE RELATION OF GIVING l8l 

named " the grace " of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be 
assiduously cultivated by the Holy Ghost, should be 
ardently coveted by all Christians. 

Let us seek, therefore, to discover the divinely appointed 
method of its impartation. 

THE GOSPEL OF GIVING 

There is a " gospel of giving." In this use of the word 
'' gospel " we do not employ the old sense " good news or 
tidings," but the more modern thought of " any doctrine 
concerning human welfare that is agitated as of great im- 
portance." 

The importance of giving has been proclaimed by 
prophet, apostle, and Lord. Yea, it antedates all of these 
and was first voiced by God the Father. An offering 
was required from Cain and Abel. The first fruits of the 
flock were not asked then because there were either poor 
or heathen in the world, but rather for the good of the 
givers. Tithing was not born with the Levitical sys- 
tem, as men commonly imagine. Long before Moses saw 
the light Jacob was saying to God : If you " will be with 
me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will 
give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that 
I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall 
the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set 
for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou 
shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee " 
(Gen. 28 : 20-22) . Solomon, the wise man, said : " There 
is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that 
withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. 
The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth 
shall be watered also himself " (Prov. 11 : 24, 25). The 
last prophet of the Old Testament gives eloquent voice 
to this same gospel of giving. After Malachi's charge to 
the people of having robbed God, he becomes the mouth- 



l82 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

piece of Jehovah to voice the words: " Bring ye all the 
tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my 
house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of 
hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and 
pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room 
enough to receive it." 

Some of the things which the apostle Paul said upon 
this subject we have already studied. But the language 
of cur Lord is never to be forgotten in this connection. 
'' Give and it shall be given unto you ; good measure, 
pressed down, and shaken together^ and running over " 
(Luke 6 :• 38). If the example of the ancients, the let- 
ter of the law, the plain language of prophet, the ap- 
peal of apostle, and the call of Christ can combine prop- 
erly to impress any great truth, the gospel of giving 
should be familiar tO' God's men and women everywhere. 

This gospel provides for proportionate giving. In the 
Old Testament economy the rich brought the bullock, 
while the poor were accepted with the turtle dove, or the 
bit of flour. The New Testament law is, " Every one . . . 
according as God has prospered him." It is often said 
there is no rule but has its exceptions. There were no 
exceptions under this rule. The poor could bring an 
ephah of flour, but not a word about those who could 
bring nothing. The widow at Zarepta was in extreme 
poverty, and yet had she declined to give, she would have 
only further impoverished herself by missing the divine 
favor. The expensive offering that Mary brought for 
Christ's anointing, the sweet spices of Joseph, must have 
been approved of God, but the most honorable mention 
was reserved for the widow who cast into the treasury 
two mites, all she had. God never intended to convert 
the world to righteousness through the magnanimity of 
the rich. If he had, Jairus, Zacchseus, Joseph, and 
Nicodemus would have belonged to the apostolate, while 



THE RELATION OF GIVING 183 

Peter, James, and John would have been left with their 
nets. God meant to make the rich and poor cooperate in 
this colossal work, and, by the gifts of both, pave the 
way for the coming King. If there is any one place at 
which the rich and poor ought to meet together in recog- 
nition of the Lord as the Maker of them all, it is before 
the contribution-box, since it is as serious for the one 
as for the other to forget that " every good gift and every 
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the 
Father of lights/' 

This gospel is linked to the most sacred events of Chris- 
tianity. When John would remind us of our obligation to 
give, he speaks of that God who so loved us as to send his 
Son to be the propitiation for our sins. When Paul 
would stimulate us in this grace he refers to the same 
infinite sacrifice. Our day is characterized by committees 
on systematic beneficence. Many of these are appointed 
on public occasions, appear once or twice during the year 
to speak before inspiring audiences, and then, at the an- 
nual gathering, render an eloquent report on " How Men 
Should Give." The best committee on systematic benefi- 
cence would be composed of not more than two, the indi- 
vidual Christian and the Holy Spirit. The Christian 
should attend that meeting to get counsel, and the Holy 
Spirit would attend it to give the same ; and every meeting 
of this sort would be followed by conduct sO' improved as 
to demonstrate the value of the commission. It was after 
some such session as this that Phelps could say : 

Saviour, thy dying love 

Thou gavest me. 
Nor should I aught withhold, 

Dear Lord, from thee : 
In love my soul would bow, 
My heart fulfil its vow, 
Some offering bring thee now. 

Something for thee. 



184 'I'HE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



THE GOD OF REVIVALS 

Having called attention to the grace of giving and the 
gospel of giving, it remains to lay further emphasis upon 
the relation which giving sustains to the perennial re- 
vival. 

With the command to " give " God associates a covenant 
of revival. If, in the Old Testament those who honored 
the Lord with their " substance and the first fruits of all 
their increase " found their " barns filled with plenty " 
and their presses " bursting out with new wine," the Lord 
changed the form of the promise, and by the pen of the 
last of his prophets offered in exchange for tithes an 
open heaven. (Mai. 3 : 10.) The words of Jesus to the 
rich young ruler, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell 
that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
treasure in heaven," have bothered many. Men ask. 
What did Jesus mean here? Why should he lay such 
unusual exactions upon this youth? Why ask him to 
make so great a sacrifice? The exactions were not un- 
usual. The sacrifice was not great when compared with 
the suggested reward. Jesus was saying the same thing 
to this young man that Jehovah said to the people of 
Malachi's time, Give up your gold, which perishes with 
the using, and take in exchange immortal souls, saved 
through its sacrifice. What is the " treasure in heaven " 
for which any Christian may look forward? Not the 
mansions that await him, nor yet the precious stones 
which shall greet his eyes as he treads the golden streets 
of the Celestial City. The same Master who spoke to the 
rich young ruler of the treasure in heaven employs the 
parable of the evil steward to teach us what he means by 
that treasure, saying of him who had made friends out of 
the mammon of unrighteousness, that they might receive 
him into their houses when he should be put out of his 



THE RELATION OF GIVING 185 

stewardship: "And I say unto you, make to yourselves 
friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; 
that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the 
eternal tabernacles." If the princess who heard others 
boasting their diamonds could point to her two children 
saying, " Behold my jewels ! " shall we not gladly expend 
our wealth to convert sinners into children of the King, 
that we may find our silver and our gold in the far city, 
where it will come back to us, as the gold of Silas Marner 
returned to him, in the radiant forms who shall fill our 
eternal home and our immortal hearts with everlasting 
joy. 

God links the salvation of sinners with the sacrifices of 
the saints. We have seen how the Scriptures affirm this 
fact. We have beheld how the New Testament church il- 
lustrated it. The church of our century has demonstrated 
this relation again and again. Theodore Cuyler, in his 
little volume, " How to Be a Pastor," records the out- 
breaking of revival upon revival in the midst of his peo- 
ple when there had been no special plans looking to these 
refreshings. In 1866, such a work of grace was upon 
them that three hundred and twenty souls were added 
to their membership, one hundred of them heads of 
families. Men wondered at these results ; but when one 
reads the record of this church all surprise is set aside, 
and he sees the relation between Christian giving and 
church growth. In the thirty years of Cuyler's pastorate 
his people contributed $700,000 for the maintenance of the 
sanctuary, its worship and work, and gave $640,000 more 
to missionary effort at home and abroad. There is a bit 
of history which many public speakers have employed, 
and yet one worthy repetition here. It is the history of 
a revival in the Clarendon Street Church, Boston. Doctor 
Gordon tells how they had prayed for a revival in his 
church, and it had not come. By and by the date for the 



l86 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

annual offering to foreign missions was approaching, and 
in speaking of it the pastor astonished his congregation 
by expressing the hope that they would contribute that 
year $10,000 for that one cause. It seemed an im- 
possible thing. There were only a few wealthy men 
in the church, and they were not given to large sacri- 
fices. But when the offering was all in, $20,000 had 
been contributed, and that without having privately 
solicited a man. In writing of it Gordon said : " It was 
simply a great impulse of the Spirit, and the astonish- 
ment of all still continues. Now is coming a gracious in- 
gathering of souls." We have long prayed for the open- 
ing of the windows of heaven, and for a blessing above 
room to receive it. Our prayers will be answered when 
we bring our tithes into God's storehouse. Campbell 
Morgan, in his little volume entitled '' Wherein," speaks 
of that little couplet, often sung in conventions : 

My all is on the altar, 
I am waiting for the fire, 

and says: "It is an absolute absurdity. Nobody ever 
waited for the fire when ' all ' was on the altar. Let a 
man sing, if he like : 

A part is on the altar, 
I am waiting for the fire. 

I do not know that he ought to waste the time in singing 
even that, but bestir himself to get the other portion on 
the altar. That is his business. When you and I put our 
all upon the altar the fire falls directly . . . God's condi- 
tions being fulfilled, God's promises never halt." Bring 
in the tithes, that is our part — and the windows will open, 
that is God's promise. 



THE PATRON EVANGELIST OF THE 
PERENNIAL REVIVAL 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE PATRON EVANGELIST OF THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

IF one proposes to present a modern name in this con- 
nection, Dwight L. Moody is without a peer. Jesus 
once said of John the Baptist : " What went ye out for to 
see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a 
prophet." The same remark might have been made to 
any group of men who had been at Moody's feet. His 
greatness grew upon the pubHc mind for more than twenty 
years, and yet his full measure was never taken until 
after his death. 

When you walk in the thick forest, and find there some 
mighty oak, you may stand beside it tO' admire its splen- 
did proportions, you may look at its height and feel how 
it pushes itself toward heaven ; but every woodsman will 
tell you that its real proportions can be appreciated only 
after it has fallen to the ground. Some years ago, while 
the Northfield Conference was in session, Doctor Gordon, 
who was in charge, received a telegram from Mr. Moody 
saying that he could not be present, but that he had three 
helpers, Meyer, Pierson, and Pentecost, who would take 
his place, and he added an encouraging Scripture refer- 
ence. Doctor Gordon immediately replied : " See i Corin- 
thians 1 6 : 17: 'I am glad oi the coming of Stephanas 
and Fortunatus and Achaicus: for that which was lack- 
ing on your part they have supplied.' " Truly he was 
equal to many men, a Napoleon for generalship, a White- 
field for eloquence, a Wesley for fervor, and a Spurgeon 
for direct speech and effective organization. And when 
he was gone, no wonder the ministers, missionaries, lay- 

189 



190 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

men, and even men of the world said one to another: 
" Know ye not that a prince and a great man is fallen this 
day in Israel ? " In order to understand this evangelist 
one needs to trace the history of his life. 
First of all, we are interested in 

THE BERTH OF THE BOY 

It was on February 5, 1837, that Dwight Moody opened 
his eyes to the light, in historic Northfield. When his 
mother carried him outside the humble house, his eyes 
rested upon the beautiful mountain ranges that rise on 
either side of the picturesque Connecticut River. The 
hill-country is a good place in which to be born. It is 
more easy to grow a giant when one has the mountains 
to climb, the forests, brooks, and rivers to look upon. 
Outdoor life is an education at once to muscle and mind; 
and doubtless the spirit of man, by communication with 
nature in such forms, is lifted into communion with na- 
ture's God, for, as Walter Scott says in " Guy Manner- 
ing," " Who can presume to analyze that inexplicable 
feeling v/hich binds a person, born in a mountainous 
country, to his native hills ? " 

This boy was of Puritan parentage. His father and 
mother were of the good old New England stock. While 
his father, Edwin Moody, was removed by death when 
Dwight was four years of age, he was by no means or- 
phaned thereby, for Betsy Holten Moody was equal to 
playing the part of both parents. The fact that she was 
left in poverty and charged with the care and support of 
eleven children did not reduce her stout heart to despair. 
On the contrary, her courage rose to meet these adverse 
circumstances, and she not only maintained her home, 
keeping her children together, but gave to. the world an 
exhibition of what a woman can do. If there is one class 
of women for whom we have respect above all other 



THE PATRON EVANGELIST I9I 

classes, it is the widowed mothers of the land. We have 
often thought that if one undertook to write a history of 
the great among widows' sons, many volumes would be 
required. Take, for a single illustration of this thought, 
the family of Wendell Phillips.. William Phillips, grand- 
father of Wendell, died at the early age of thirty- four. 
His young widow so succeeded in the training and educa- 
tion of her son as to see him become famous as the Hon. 
John Phillips. Carlos Martin says of her : " She was a 
woman of unusual strength of character, well educated, 
and a devoted Christian, and when at last this only son 
stood forth on public occasions as the most finished orator 
of Boston, it was easy to see how the mother had molded 
and made him. John Phillips was the father of Wendell, 
but he too, like his father, was destined for an early 
death. And so when Wendell had seen but twelve years, 
his mother was widowed, and the entire responsibility for 
the education and outfit of a family of nine children 
rested upon her, and IMartin says : " The sagacious man- 
ner in which she met and mastered the emergency con- 
tributed, no doubt, to give her son that respect for, and 
appreciation of, female ability which became one of his 
characteristic traits." But, admirable as was the result 
of Sally Phillips' influence over Wendell, it was not more 
to be praised than was that which Betsy Holten Moody 
exerted upon her son's life. 

When John Adams said, " I am what my mother made 
me," he voiced the same thought expressed by Mr. Moody 
on the occasion of his mother's funeral when, contrary to 
custom, he stood forth and uttered those eloquent words 
of tribute to her character, and of gratitude for her 
influence upon his own life. When some one asked 
Napoleon what France needed, he replied, " Mothers." 
When we trace the history of a great man back to the 
breeding of such a mother as was Mrs. Moody we 



192 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

are compelled to say : '' America's need is the same — 
' mothers ' ! " 

HIS BEGINNINGS IN BUSINESS 

These are almost of equal interest with his birth. When 
he was seventeen years of age he left Northfield to seek 
employment in Boston. It is not difficult to imagine the 
separation of mother and son. Those who were at the 
World's Fair and looked on the original, yea, all who have 
studied even the copy, of the famous picture, '' Breaking 
Home Ties," will need no further aid to the imagination 
as they think of the parting of D wight Moody and his 
mother. Into the anxious face of that mother the artist 
has wrought all of the suffering and all of the solicitude 
incident to the hour when a country woman gives up her 
boy to city life^ — with all of its difficulties of situation, all 
of its insidious temptations, and all of its noble possi- 
bilities. 

D wight encountered difficulties from the first day. His 
uncle, William Holten, was a shoe merchant and able to 
give him a situation. But Dwight's reputation had pre- 
ceded him toi Boston, and the uncle had been cautioned 
that if he gave the boy a place in the store he must plan 
to take second place himself, for D wight was headstrong 
and bossy. In consequence, this merchant uncle sent the 
lad forth day after day in search of a position, and when 
he saw that even his failures to find one did not discour- 
age him, he could not withhold his admiration; and he 
offered him a place in his own store on two conditions : 
first, that he be obedient; secondly, that he attend the 
Congregational Church every Sunday. The lad readily 
consented to both, and his first place of employment asso- 
ciated him with friends destined to help in shaping his life 
and labors. The restraining hand of that uncle was an 
influence needful and beneficent, while the love and in- 



THE PATRON EVANGELIST I93 

struction of the Congregational pastor were factors of 
might in the making of the coming man. One of God's 
best gifts to a young man is a true friend. Pastor Stalker 
says : " Such a friend purifies and exalts. He may be 
a second conscience; a consciousness of what he expects 
from us may be a spur tO' high endeavor. . . Even when 
the fear of facing our own conscience might not be strong 
enough to restrain us from evil, the knowledge that our 
conduct will have to encounter his judgment, will make 
the commission of what is base intolerable." 

How much, therefore, is to be attributed to the in- 
fluence of the merchant uncle, and to that of the church 
pastor, in the making up of the sum total of Moody's man- 
hood no one can tell. It is certain, however, that God 
blessed him in bringing him into their association. 

But, after all, the secret of his success lay in the, 
boy himself. He performed his duties faithfully. Like 
Richard Arkwright, the inventor ; like Turner, the painter ; 
like Shakespeare, the poet; like Burns, Ben Jonson, 
Hugh Miller, John Foster, David Livingstone, and others, 
he compelled poverty to play the part of the stepping- 
stone, adversity to mother ambition, disappointment to 
give place to hope by doing his every duty well ; and, as 
the old maxim says, " Heaven helps those who help 
themselves." 

In 1856, the nineteen-year-old lad was leaving Boston 
for Chicago, quitting his uncle's shoe-store to take a 
better position in the same business in the Western city. 

It was here in Chicago that he 

BLOSSOMED INTO AN EVANGELIST 

The beginnings of his religious work, like his boyhood, 
and his embarkation in business, were small and seem- 
ingly insignificant. In Chicago he united with the Plym- 
outh Congregational Church, As many know, it was 



194 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

even then one of the well-to-do and aristocratic institu- 
tions of the city. Imagine, then, the surprise of the splen- 
did superintendent when this awkward and uncouth lad 
made application to teach a class. He was told there was 
no vacancy — model school ! Some men would have gone 
off with injured feelings to speak angry words, but this 
youth, burning with enthusiasm, did the saner thing. He 
hied himself to some of the back streets, and there made 
friends with a score of ragamuffins, and on the following 
Sabbath had them seated on a log half-covered by the 
sands that make up the Lake Michigan shore, and for a 
Sabbath or two he opened up to this company the word 
of God. Again he went back to the superintendent in the 
Plymouth Church and asked for a class, and that Chris- 
tian gentleman replied : " You can teach if you get your 
own class." It was just the word that Moody wanted, 
and the very next Sunday, to the consternation of some 
of those who were willing to send their money to evan- 
gelize the heathen, and who had shed many tears over 
the degraded estate of people in India, China, Japan, and 
Africa, but who had never concerned themselves for the 
State Street crowd, he led them in, fourteen strong, and 
seated them well to the front. Through the influence 
of a well-to-do and godly young man. Moody and his 
unwashed were permitted to become permanent factors in 
the Plymouth Church. In Mr. Moody's home in North- 
field visitors used to see an interesting sight. In strange 
contrast with the splendid oil paintings which adorned the 
walls of the Moody home there hung two modest little 
photographs framed in plain oak. One of them represented 
the fourteen boys as they were when Moody began with 
them. They were unkempt, ragged, dirty, unattractive! 
The other represented the twelve boys upon whom Mr. 
Moody was able to keep his hold. And though the time 
between the first picture and the second was not long, the 



THE PATRON EVANGELIST 1 95 

transformation was marked and beautiful, for these twelve 
were clean- faced, the hair of each had been tamed and 
trained by the comb, while their clothes had no hint of 
dirt or rags. Under the first of these pictures was written 
the words, " Does it pay ? " Under the second was written, 
" It does pay." There in that work was the promise of 
God's prophet. The elements that made him great never 
better manifested themselves than they did in that mat- 
ter. There he showed his enthusiasm for souls. There 
he showed himself difficult to discourage. There he 
showed himself capable of reaching the neglected. There 
he manifested that matchless love for his fellow men 
which was the never-failing secret of his success in 
dealing with them. From that time he followed the 
promptings of the Spirit, and the young shoe merchant 
as naturally became the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion secretar}^, and eventually the great evangelist, as did 
Philip the deacon become Philip the peerless preacher 
under the guidance of the same Spirit. 

One thing has profoundly impressed us as we have 
studied Moody, the young man. He seems never to have 
dreamed of his own abilities; and while John B. Far- 
well and John Wanamaker were among his early friends 
and had great faith in him, it is doubtful if they ever 
divined his splendid powers until the years had proved 
them. It has been true of most great men that they 
have appreciated their own abilities. When Henry Ward 
Beecher was but a lad in Indianapolis he set such price 
upon his own sermons as to presume upon their publica- 
tion, at a time when printing was expensive and patronage 
difficult. When Doctor Lorimer was yet in his youth he 
published his " Jesus — the World's Saviour," a book con- 
cerning which, twenty-five years ago, he said, " I esteem it 
my best." When Charles Spurgeon was a lad the great 
Doctor Knill took him upon his knee one day, and said: 



196 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

" This boy will yet preach the gospel, and he will preach 
it to a great multitude. I am persuaded that he will 
preach in the chapel of Rowland Hill." But Moody 
seems never to have entertained such a thought of himself, 
and if the most ardent admirers of his youth saw evidence 
of his coming greatness they were silent about it. But, 
as Doctor Gunsaulus, lecturing on the great Savonarola, 
said, as he pictured that great prophet of God going on 
from conquest to conquest, from triumph to triumph, 
'' One never rises so high as when one does not know 
whither one is going." But if we were to ask how it 
came to pass that this country-bred boy, this ungainly 
and uneducated young salesman, shot into the zenith of 
religious life, and shone there for forty years with a 
luster that dimmed the brilliance of the brainiest men of 
English and American ministry ; how it came to pass that 
this slouchy-looking Sunday-school teacher, beginning 
with fourteen slum-urchins, was suddenly standing on the 
platform, swept about by the thousands of the high and 
low, the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the learned, 
swaying with his fervent speech the whole multitude, we 
would be compelled to answer : " It was only because he 
surrendered himself absolutely to do the divine will." 

In studying Moody in the ascendent, one is impressed 
that he was 

BROADENED BY HIS BLESSINGS 

Success with him resulted in greater unselfishness. 
One of the secrets of his success in dealing with the 
ministers of this country was his unselfishness. He was 
extremely careful to have as many ministers as possible 
take part in his services, and often asked if there were 
some of the pastors who had not been invited to the 
platform. Every singer, from the time of Mr. Sankey's 
service, down to his latest associate, found him not a 



THE PATRON EVANGELIST I97 

master, but a brother. But that unselfishness displayed 
itself more perfectly still in his methods of handling 
money. He was a master at taking collections. Thou- 
sands and hundreds of thousands of dollars the public 
put into his hands, and while he might have kept a con- 
siderable portion as a rightful exchange for his preach- 
ing, he retained of it all only a comfortable living, and 
would have left his wife and children in poverty but for 
the importunity of his friends, who succeeded, just a little 
while before his decease, in arguing him into a life in- 
surance. One of the tests of manhood is what one does 
with his money, and the touchstone of one's Christianity 
is his treatment of silver and gold. 

Another respect in which Mr. Moody was broadened 
by his blessings appeared in the fact that swelling audi- 
ences drove him to study. There are not a few men in 
America and England, whose only honor is a college de- 
gree, and who at one time spoke sneeringly of Moody's 
lack of education. At the time of his death, Dr. Henry 
C. Mabie referred to this sneer, and pitied the man that 
uttered it, saying : " Mr. Moody's private library is one of 
the best I have ever looked upon, and few men of my 
acquaintance are such students of books as this peerless 
evangelist." That he was more than a patron of learning, 
that he was her faithful friend, is evidenced by those 
magnificent schools which stand at Northfield — a monu- 
ment to his labors, and his gift to the Master and to 
needy men. No wonder February 5 is made a holiday 
in that little town; no wonder the stores are closed on 
that day each year and all business is suspended, and the 
people turn into the house of God. That thousand acres 
of land beautified beyond any possibilities of art; those 
thirty buildings erected in the cause of education; those 
three schools, the Female Seminary, Mount Hermon for 
the boys, and the Training School for both sexes, that 



198 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

summer assembly, a fountain opened for the revival of 
men's souls, through the instruction of the word — are 
not these indeed institutions in which any village in the 
land would rejoice ? And if this little town> — ^more nearly 
a miniature heaven to-day than anything we have known 
on earth besides — did not commemorate his birth and 
mourn over his death, it would be a village of ingrates 
indeed. 

Time will not suffice for us to speak of his loyalty 
to the word of God. The noblest defender of a full in- 
spiration, the kindest but keenest critic of the critics, he 
stood always firm for the old faith. If Paul had lived in 
his time, and had occasion to write to Moody, he would 
never have said, as he did to Timothy : " I charge thee 
therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and 
his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out 
of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering 
and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not 
endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall 
they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 
and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and 
shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, 
endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full 
proof of thy ministry" (2 Tim. 4 : 1-5). There would 
have been no need, for Paul was not more faithful to 
that word than was this modern prophet, nor did he know 
better how to preach it. 

THE MONUMENTS TO HIS MEMORY ARE NOT ALONE AT 

NORTH FIELD 

The Moody Church in Chicago- is easily the greatest 
agency for evangelism known to that city, or to the entire 
West. In addition to the hundreds of souls that are 
saved through its direct work, the students of the Moody 



THE PATRON EVANGELIST I99 

Training School are going out annually in splendid com- 
panies: — agents of God and his gospel every one ; while the 
Colportage Association press is pouring out a stream of 
publications that make up indeed a river of life, on either 
bank of which trees of knowledge grow, whose leaves are 
for the healing of the nations. 

But, in our judgment, the greatest work Mr. Moody 
ever did is the one of which men make the least mention, 
namely, the one of evangelizing those pastors who are 
not utterly indifferent to their true ministry, and those 
churches which were not too cold to respond to the call 
of this modern prophet of God. The Clarendon Street 
Church dated the day of its enlargement and power to the 
meetings held there forty-five years ago by Mr. Moody. 
Among his later labors was a meeting in Tremont Temple, 
Boston. A friend, writing of the services of that great 
church on the Sunday succeeding his death, said : " When 
Doctor Lorimer had finished his morning sermon con- 
cerning Mr. Moody a score of people rose to request the 
saved to pray for them. At night, after a fervent, af- 
fectionate plea by Doctor Lorimer, a watch-meeting was 
entered upon, in the course of which a full hundred more 
rose to say : ' Brethren, pray that we may be saved.' " 
Oh, that this great evangelist might have lived to breathe 
upon every pastor of the land, and upon every church 
a reviving breath ; and to have witnessed them enjoying, 
every one, a perennial revival ! 



THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL AND THE 
REFORMATION OF SOCIETY 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL AND THE REFORMATION OF 
SOCIETY 

AT the close of an address on " Jesus, the Social 
Reformer," treated entirely from a scriptural stand- 
point, a well-instructed auditor said : ^' I confess to great 
surprise in finding how much Jesus did as a social 
reformer, and how often he spoke on the subject of 
property and poverty." No man can go through the New 
Testament Gospels and note the words of Jesus on these 
themes without surprise. He was indeed the social re- 
former of all ages. His mission was the most revolu- 
tionary one the world ever saw. One thing that church- 
men need to learn is this : that the mission of the Son of 
man is their mission, if their profession of faith is at all 
genuine. What he " began to do and teach " we must 
continue until " the day-star arises and the shadows flee 
away." Every opinion which he expressed upon this very 
important topic of the social order should be ardently 
repeated and propagated by his disciples. As he spake 
the truth in love, so should we voice it for all mankind. 
There is a love that criticizes only, and there is a love 
that corrects and develops. The latter needs to be more 
fervent than the former, else men will call it into ques- 
tion. Every social reformer should definitely understand 
that apart from love he can do nothing. To create a 
race prejudice, to incite class spirit, to irritate still further 
existing contentions^ — these are all easy. But to stand 
before armies drawn up for battle, and so plead the cause 
of peace as to scabbard the sword — that is more honor- 

203 



204 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

able. Such is the office of the church in its work of 
social reform. 

It is the purpose of this chapter to make some sugges- 
tions as to how the church might execute its social mis- 
sion. These suggestions will reveal the relations between 
the perennial revival and social reform. 

SAVE THE INDIVIDUAL FROM SIN 

The mission of the Son of man is clearly expressed in 
Luke 19 : 10: " The Son of man is come to seek and to 
save that which was lost." If, therefore, the mission of 
the Son of man and the mission of the church are one, the 
first work of the latter is to win men from the world's 
sins. 

Sin is the tap-root of all social disorder. It matters 
not what form that disorder takes, sin is always its origin. 
The indolent man is guilty of the sin of sloth. The im- 
becile is such only because sin has marred what God made 
perfect. When the strong oppress the weak they are 
guilty of an awful iniquity. When the great or small 
indulge the passions of the flesh, the fruits thereof are 
apples of Sodom to the social order. Mr. Dugdale, in 
a work on " Criminology," tells us that to one bad woman, 
in Indianapolis, were born five daughters, known in police 
circles as " the Juke sisters." At the time Mr. Dugdale 
wrote his book the descendants of those five women num- 
bered twelve hundred and sixty-one. Of all the males in 
this family only twenty had any profession at all, and ten 
of those learned their trade behind prison-bars. Of all 
the women in this company, fifty- two per cent were 
fallen; while only two per cent of the entire progeny 
seemed to be normal in mind and morals. Up to the 
time of Dugdale's writing that family had cost the State 
of Indiana a million and a quarter dollars. Who will say 
that the first work of the church is not to save the indi- 



THE REFORMATION OF SOCIETY 205 

vidual from sin ? Who can compute the contribution that 
would have been made to the social order had this sin- 
ful mother been won from her wickedness to the true 
worship of the Son of God, before one of those five 
daughters ever opened her eyes to the light of day ? 

The saved man contributes to social righteousness. 
His life stands for a better social order. What reforming 
force is so positive and powerful as a person? How 
much poorer the social order would be had Paul never 
lived, had Luther perished in swaddling clothes, had 
Bunyan continued in his wicked ways, had Wilberforce 
never been visited by the Spirit of God, had Wendell 
Phillips never heard Lyman Beecher's sermon on the sub- 
ject, " You Belong to God " ! It will be a victorious time 
for the church if she ever sets herself to the problem of 
making men, as Josiah Strong suggests, " by trying to 
remove every moral and physical evil; to give every 
child who comes into the world the best possible chance ; 
to lend a hand to every man struggling to be free from 
sin and ignorance, and to attain to righteousness and 
knowledge." God told Abraham that ten righteous men 
could save Sodom. Henry Drummond, in his picture of 
'* A city without a church," thinks that ten righteous men 
would save the world's greatest and wickedest municipal 
center. The life of Savonarola in Florence, Italy, would 
seem to illustrate the claim. It was the time when the 
Medici sat on the throne ; when, as S. E. Herrick puts it, 
" culture was wedded to corruption." " It was an age 
whose external garb was elegant, whose inmost heart was 
moral rottenness; an age whose only grand enthusiasms 
were for art and vice." Yet, this solitary man went into 
a city where " splendor and cruelty walked hand in hand ; 
where, in the ducal palace perpetual f eastings were going 
on in gorgeous saloons; where the clinking of glass and 
crystals was matched by the clanking of fetters in the 



206 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

dungeons underneath." He uncovered that cruelty to the 
eyes of its perpetrators; he exposed those f eastings be- 
fore the face of God; he stopped the cHnking of glass 
and the riot of drink; he struck the fetters from the 
ankles of slaves. When he finished with the throne, the 
ruler had been led to repentance, compelled to restore 
his ill-gotten gain, and to give Florence her freedom. 
Such a life as this, with its effect upon the social order, 
makes one feel the truth of that now popular phrase, 
" What we need is not more men ; but more man ! " 

CONSTRUCT A NEW SOCIETY 

Jesus came to do this. No man can read the ministry 
of the Son of God reported in the four Gospels and 
question it. And here again the mission of Christ ought 
to be the mission of the church. 

It should form a circle within a circle. The way to 
correct society is not to begin at the rim, and try to set 
it all right, from circumference to center, by a single en- 
actment. One must work from within outward. When, 
in the later fifties, good democrats saw that their party 
was linked indissolubly with the custom of slavery, they 
began an abolition agitation. One man won another, and 
the two a third, and so on until the heart of democracy 
was eaten out, and a social revolution was the result. 
That Jesus meant to build up a society within society is 
evident in his speech concerning his own disciples : " I 
pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast 
given me; for they are thine. . . I have given them thy 
word; and the world hath hated them, because they are 
not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray 
not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but 
that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are 
not of the world, even as I am not of the world " (John 
17 : 9, 14-16). 



THE REFORMATION OF SOCIETY 20/ 

Think how significant is the expression which the 
Jews at Thessalonica employed concerning Paul and 
Silas — disciples of this same Jesus! They went to the 
house of one Jason, supposed to be entertaining these 
brethren, and violently assaulted it, carrying Jason and 
certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, and cry- 
ing : " These that have turned the world upside down 
have come hither also. And these all do contrary to the 
decrees of Caesar." The charge was well founded. This 
little circle of Christ's disciples, having found the world 
wrong-side up, had set themselves to the task of righting 
it. They, having seen the superiority of Christ over 
Caesar, propagated the opinions of the former as against 
the decrees of the latter. The world to-day is in equal 
need of being righted, and the politics of this hour smell 
as loudly of corruption, and are put to the same incon- 
venience by the opinions of the Christ. It is a circle 
within a circle, a company working from the center to the 
circumference, a society instituted of God to set things 
to rights. 

It must condemn, by contrast, bad social customs. The 
men who bring in a new social order will not be self- 
ish reformers. Holtzman, a German theologian, says: 
" There can be no manner of doubt that the fundamental 
ideas of socialism ought to be referred to Jesus." Pro- 
fessor Peabody justly remarks : " There is a subtle differ- 
ence, as of a change of atmosphere, when one passes from 
the presence of many social reformers and approaches 
the spirit of the teaching of Jesus. One breathes in 
the Gospels a climate of tolerance, mercy, and many- 
sidedness, which is far from stimulating to the socialist's 
temper, and moderates the bitterness of his indictment of 
the world." That accounts for the fact that Carl Marx 
parts company with the Christ, and puts his plea into 
the phrases of the materialist. Yet what scheme of 



208 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

social reform ever proved itself so effective as has the 
very conduct of consistent Christians? When Paul car- 
ried the gospel to Rome, law was the watchword of the 
State, tyranny the custom of its emperors, oppression the 
practice of its favored classes. In a single century the 
whole face of society was changed. Love vied with law ; 
the emperor thought more humbly of himself ; the upper 
classes recognized in their slaves Christian brethren and 
sisters. This same society, called Christian, compasses a 
similar mission to this moment. 

You can follow the track of the true church of God 
by the better social order left in its train. Witness Eng- 
land and America where Protestant Christianity are in 
the ascendency ; go into the heathen worlds, and wherever 
you find a church you find the beginnings of civilization, 
the rising consciousness of a common brotherhood, and 
the exercise of an increasing justice as between man and 
man. When, in 1872, Mr. Moody was returning from 
Europe there was a number of ministers on board. A 
young man with the spirit of a braggart stepped up to the 
captain, and said in a loud tone that he was sorry he 
had taken passage on that boat, as it would be unlucky 
to travel with so many parsons. The captain was himself 
a pretty rough fellow, but he had no sympathy with this 
egotist, and replied: '' You fool! If you will show me a 
town in England where there are five thousand people and 
not one parson, I will show you a place a mile nearer hell 
than you have ever been." The average European or 
American hardly imagines how much of the good social 
order he enjoys is due to the gospel of the Son of God. 

Dr. Fred Haggard states that he has seen a filthy, al- 
most nude, ignorant Assamese woman, with the juice of 
the beetle-nut running from each corner of her mouth, 
transformed in five short years into a woman of genuine 
refinement, with habits of tidiness, clothed as a westerner, 



THE REFORMATION OF SOCIETY 2Qg 

worthy to be spoken of as civilized. What did it? The 
village in which she lived underwent a kindred change 
in the same brief season. What did it? Doctor Clark, 
missionary in the Congo Free State, Africa, testifies to 
having seen the same social order brought from heathen 
confusion in as short a season. What did it? Informed 
men will tell you that it came about in consequence of 
the regenerating influences of the gospel of the Son of 
God. 

Some time since, in a Sunday-school convention in 
Minneapolis, Marion Lawrance reported how William 
Reynolds drove into a county-seat in southern Illinois 
and found it an utterly God-forsaken place, a veritable 
Sodom indeed. Saloons competed with dwelling-houses 
for numbers; the county jail was full of criminals, and 
an iron railing, running around the building, had twoscore 
of men, with manacled hands, chained to it, because the 
prison appointments could not receive all who belonged be- 
hind the bars. In seven years the saloons had gone, the 
chains had been taken from the wrists of this evil row; 
and even the jail's cells contained but a single man. What 
wrought the change? A circle within a circle; a church 
within the city; Christian conduct contrasting bad social 
customs. Do you tell us that an institution capable of 
this victory can do nothing for the great social problems 
which now appeal to beneficent powers for a solution ? 

PREACH AND PRACTISE SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 

The truth will fell on the social order. WTio can better 
teach it than a church of Christ? For centuries it has 
been the custodian of God's truth as revealed in his 
word — the best book ever written on social order. Wise 
socialists and intelligent Christians are, alike, working 
for the recovery of the scheme of social life set forth in 
that book. As long ago as the time of Moses, God 



2IO THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

provided against the accumulation of great estates to 
pass them on to indolent heirs. As long ago as Moses' 
time, God, through the same word, uttered an emancipa- 
tion proclamation, which was effective every seven years. 
As long ago as Moses' time, God declared the right of 
the laborer to share with the owner the fruits of the 
field; and as long ago as Jesus' time, God presented the 
peril of riches, witnessed in the strongest words against 
all oppression, and affirmed in unmistakable speech, the 
fraternity of all men. What wonder, then, that Carroll 
D. Wright, qualified by the office which he held to under- 
stand the social problem at first hand and fitted by his 
knowledge of the word of God to know what it says con- 
cerning this great subject, wrote, some years ago, these 
words : " After many years of investigation into the so- 
cial, moral, and industrial condition of the people, I came 
to the conclusion that, in the adoption of the philosophy 
of the religion of Christ as a practical creed for the con- 
duct of business, there was tO' be found the surest and 
speediest solution of the difficulties which excite the 
minds of men, and which lead many to think social, in- 
dustrial, and political revolution is at hand. I still remain 
of the same opinion." Dr. George C. Lorimer, speaking 
of the effort which men have made to frame a social 
gospel with Christ left out, said : " Deprived of the 
supernatural, how much of sanctity and authority would 
survive? Robbed of that distinction, religion could pre- 
tend to no revelations and could impart no assurance. 
Repudiating it, men and women have tried to worship and 
do good to their fellows; but they have found no basis 
on which to rest duty or to make it anything other than 
mere preference, and they have been unable to comfort 
the afflicted with anything but a vague fancy relative to a 
future life. They have eulogized the gospel of soup and 
bread, clothes and shelter; have so idealized humanity as 



THE REFORMATION OF SOCIETY 211 

to substitute it for God himself, and have awakened a 
temporary interest in their experiments ; but the outcome 
has uniformly discouraged them. They have found that 
charity apart from spiritual communion with the Almighty 
increases its objects; that the soup of to-day will not 
satisfy the poor of to-morrow; that pauperism actually 
grows under the touch of relief that is prompted simply by 
secularism ; and that the crowd soon turns up its nose at 
the worship of humanity. The Christianity that succeeds 
in bringing succor to the forlorn and destitute is unques- 
tionably the Christianity that is grounded in the super- 
natural, and whose very doctrines are permeated through 
and through with the supernatural." To teach that doc- 
trine, then, is the plain duty of the church. It is no mere 
sophistry to say, " Truth is mighty, and will prevail." 
There was a time when slavery was the custom of the 
world, but Christ's single sentence, " All ye are brethren," 
brought it to an end. There was a time when polygamy 
was a common practice, but God's word concerning the 
better custom of monogamy has condemned it as sin and 
made it a shame. There was a time when rulers op- 
pressed the people with impunity, but wherever Christ's 
name is known and his gospel spoken, that custom comes 
more and more to an end. He is a poor philosopher who 
does not know that truth is an effective social reformer. 
The time is past when the average family is compelled to 
live on an income of thirty dollars per annum; when 
the common people are permitted to own no land ; when 
the poor perish without a physician; and the ignorant 
can enjoy no opportunities of education. And what 
brought it to an end ? Among other things, certainly the 
utterance of that truth which has fearlessly denounced 
tyranny on the one side, and called to account lawless' 
ness on the other. 

If there is> one thing, however, which is more potent 



212 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

than teaching the truth, it is to live it. Hence our state- 
ment, " by the preaching and practice of social righteous- 
ness." Professor Peabody says : " Many a man can teach 
Christian doctrine to heathen listeners; but only a life, 
which has been ' hid with Christ in God ' can communicate 
to heathen lives the spiritual energy which proceeds 
through Christ from God." We all understand his mean- 
ing. The " Son of man came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister." " The disciple is not above his Master." 
" As the Father sent Christ, even so sends he us." We 
are not in the world to fleece it, but here to favor and 
help it. A clean distinction has been made by Josiah 
Strong on this point when he says, " Commercial service 
aims to supply a demand; Christian service aims to meet 
a need." There is a vast deal of preaching in the world 
that would be more effective if turned into practice; as 
there is a vast deal of praying that would be more con- 
sistent if associated with doing. To illustrate, we noticed 
some years ago a little squib from the Omaha *' World- 
Herald " to the effect that a poor man was sick and in 
severe financial straits. Some of his brethren of the 
church met at his house to pray for his speedy recovery, 
and asked God to send material sustenance to his family. 
While one of the deacons was offering a fervent petition 
there was a rap at the door. A friend opening it found 
this same deacon's stout son standing on the steps. 
"How do you do, my boy; what brought you here?" 
" I have brought pa's prayers," he replied. " Brought 
your pa's prayers ? What do you mean? " " Yep ; I have 
brought his prayers, and they are out in the wagon. You 
jest help me, and we will get them in." Investigation 
disclosed the fact that he had hauled from his father's 
house a load of potatoes, apples, corn-meal, flour, bacon, 
together with some clothing, and a lot of jellies for the 
sick. And the reporter went on to say that this dis- 



THE REFORMATION OF SOCIETY 213 

covery " broke the meeting up." And yet, underneath 
this facetious story, there is a most serious suggestion. 
To preach the truth is a power, as praying is ; but to prac- 
tise it is the better part. The words of Jesus are again 
in requisition : " Then shall he say also unto them on the 
left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was 
an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, 
and ye gave me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took 
me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in 
prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also an- 
swer him, saying. Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, 
or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and 
did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, 
saying, Verily I say unto you. Inasmuch as ye did it not 
to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." 

God works with them who walk with him. How any 
man can hope to influence the social order for righteous- 
ness without first finding out what God thinks about it, 
without praying for his guidance at every step, we can- 
not understand. The selfish are always trying to get 
God to agree with them. The wise are always searching 
for God's thought, that they may be in agreement with 
him. It is said that during the stormy days of the Civil 
War some one asked Abraham Lincoln to appoint a day 
of fasting and prayer that God might be on the side of 
the Union army. " Don't bother about that," said the 
man of common sense, " God is now on the right side, 
and simply get with him." When the church gets with 
him a perennial revival will follow, and in that revival 
social reform will be surely found. 



THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL AND WORLD 
EVANGELIZATION 



CHAPTER XV 

THE> PERENNIAL REVIVAL AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 

SOME time ago a well-to-do Baptist contributed five 
hundred dollars to the Baptist Missionary Union, re- 
questing that it be expended in distributing to the Baptist 
pastors of the North John R. Mott's book, " The Evangel- 
ization of the World in this Generation." The volumes 
sent out were attended with the request that the pastors 
read the work ancj give to their people the benefit thereof. 
This wise Christian man knew the relation of work abroad 
to a revival at home. He appreciated what Jacob Riis 
later expressed in the following language : " Every once 
in a while I hear some one growl against foreign missions 
because the money and the strength put into them are 
needed at home. I did myself when I did not know better ; 
God forgive me! I know better now; and I will tell 
you how I found out. I became interested in a strong 
religious awakening in my old city of Copenhagen, and 
I set about investigating it. It was then that I learned 
what others had learned before me, and what was the 
fact there — that for every dollar you give away to con^ 
vert the heathen abroad, God gives you ten dollars' worth 
of purpose to deal with your heathen at home." Hence 
the gift of this volume of Mott's. We commend its 
reading, and for the present content ourselves with cull- 
ing out some general facts and figures for use in this 
chapter. 

Ever since the Student Volunteer Movement adopted 
this statement, " The Evangelization of the World in 
this Generation," as its watchword, we. have been mightily 

217 



2l8 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

impressed with the wisdom and inspiration of their motto. 
It is always wise to set for the church of Jesus Christ 
a worthy goal; and there is a wonderful inspiration in 
a mere appeal to high, yet possible attainment. There 
could be no stronger argument in favor of the wisdom 
of this watchword than that found in the fact that while 
the optimism of youth first voiced this battle-cry, " The 
Evangelization of the World in this Generation," in the 
Ecumenical Missionary Conference, held in New York 
City, the oldest missionaries in attendance, men who had 
been for forty years face to face with heathenism, ex- 
pressed their convictions that the proposition involved 
was not only worthy of an endeavor, but easily within the 
power of the church as at present constituted. Admitting 
the possibility, the responsibihty for evangelizing the 
world in this generation is at once upon us. You will re- 
member how, when John Williams, the apostle to the 
South Sea Islands, once proposed to return to his native 
country and urge his fellow Christians to furnish more 
missionaries for the South Seas, a chieftain replied : " Go 
with all speed, get all the missionaries you can, and come 
back as soon as you can, but many of us will be dead be- 
fore you return." Arthur T. Pierson says, *' The whole 
pathos of missions was in that short entreaty." And it 
cannot be denied that the whole proposition of evangel- 
izing the world in this generation was suggested by the 
same appeal. The heathen now living must have the 
truth at the lips of the Christians now living, or never 
hear it at all, for by the time the sands of life have run 
out with us, their hundreds of millions will be sleeping 
beneath the sod. It is high time, then, that the church 
cease from the thought of committing the heathen to the 
next generation, and begin the march involved in Christ's 
Great Commission. For that march there is inspiration 
in the saying of Jesus, as found in his solemn address 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION 2ig 

in Matthew 24 : '' For this gospel of the kingdom shall be 
preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; 
and then shall the end come." 

" THIS GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM " 

''This gospel'' is God's specific for sin. When Paul 
was writing his epistle to the Romans he said: " I am 
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." And 
again : " Whosoever shall call upon the name of the 
Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him 
in whom they have not believed? and how shall they 
believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how 
shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall 
they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How 
beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gos- 
pel of peace. . . So then faith cometh by hearing, and 
hearing by the word of God." Mark's report of the 
Great Commission is : " Preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; 
but he that believeth not shall be damned." There can be 
little question that one of the reasons, perhaps the most 
important one, for the slow progress of the church in 
recent years, and the present penury of our missionary 
treasuries, comes in consequence of calling this Scripture 
into question. Too many doctors of divinity, and pro- 
fessors of universities, have taken to prescribing other 
specifics for sin. Education is a good prescription for 
ignorance, and social settlements for filth and squalor, 
and institutional churches for the submerged; but for 
the sinful — high or low, rich or poor, educated or igno- 
rant — the gospel of the Son of God is the only saving por- 
tion. Those who are stained must be brought to the foot 
of the cross where flows his cleansing blood; and those 
who are anguished in spirit and overburdened can be 



220 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

freed only by learning of " him v^ho bore our sins in his 
own body on the tree." We believe v^ith Henry Van 
Dyke, " Christianity has ceased to be the religion of the 
unshepherded multitude v^hen it has ceased to proclaim 
redemption through Christ's blood." We also believe that 
in all the multitude of anguished, v^eary, living, dying 
souls, there is not a man or a woman so low that the 
cross cannot lift him, or so loathsome that the blood can- 
not make him clean. 

One day as John Williams was walking along in one 
of the South Sea Islands he passed a row of six or eight 
stone seats, where the natives sat to chat with the passers- 
by, and a cripple crawled from one of these seats crying 
to Williams : " Welcome, servant of God, who brought 
light into this dark island! To you we are indebted for 
the word of heaven." Williams was greatly surprised, 
for he had never seen the man before, and on finding him 
well instructed in the Bible, he asked : '' Where did you 
get all this knowledge ? The beggar answered : " As the 
people return from the service, I sit at the wayside and 
beg from them, as they pass by, a bit of the word. One 
gives one piece, and another another, and I gather them 
together in my heart, and thinking over what I thus ob- 
tain, and praying to God to make me know, I get to 
understand." If the gospel could reach the heart of that 
heathen, and bring to him hope, where is the man whose 
sins are such this same truth cannot save him ? 

" The kingdom " is the keynote of this gospel. 

Perhaps no man has ever given himself to a study of 
the gospel, as expressed by the four reporters, Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, without being impressed by the 
continual recurrence of the phrase " The kingdom of 
God " or " The kingdom of heaven." As John Watson 
has said : " Jesus is ever preaching the ' kingdom of God ' 
and explaining it in parables and images of exquisite sim- 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION 221 

plicity. He exhorts men to make any sacrifice that they 
may enter the kingdom of God. He warns certain that 
they must not look back, lest they should not be fit for 
the kingdom of God. He declares that it is not possible 
for others to enter the kingdom of God. He encourages 
one because ' he is not far from the kingdom of God.' 
He gives to his chief apostle the keys of the kingdom of 
heaven. He rates the Pharisees because they shut up 
' the kingdom of heaven ' against men. He comforts 
the poor because theirs is ' the kingdom of heaven/ and 
he invites the nations to sit down with Abraham in ' the 
kingdom of heaven.' The kingdom was in his thought 
the chiefest good of the soul and the hope of the world, 
' the one far-off divine event to which the whole creation 
moves.' " 

It is not surprising, therefore, that those men who 
have seen, in all missionary endeavor at home and abroad, 
a work that looked directly to, and prepared absolutely 
for, the coming of the kingdom, should have been the 
great missionary spirits of the ages. As those who have 
believed in that full and perfect inspiration of God's word 
have been the evangelists of times past, so those who have 
looked for the kingdom of God to be set up in this world 
and Christ himself to reign have been the missionary en- 
thusiasts of the centuries. When we repeat the Lord's 
Prayer our lips voice the cry of the centuries, " Thy 
kingdom come." Why do we so pray ? Is it not because 
we know that the kingdom is not come as yet; and also 
because we know it is going to come ; and that the preach- 
ing of " this gospel " must usher it in ? But when we pray 
that prayer do we think it possible that this generation 
might see the complete answer, that those of us who are 
now living might yet witness what the prophets of the 
past have longed to see? Again, when we pray that 
prayer, do we realize that whether we live to see its 



222 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

answer or no will depend solely upon how we conduct 
ourselves with reference to the great problem of world 
evangelization ? 

In order to deepen that thought we turn attention more 
fully to the great saying at which we have been looking, 
for it contains 

THE saviour's SWEEPING PROMISE 

" This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all 
the world for a witness unto all nations." 

The promise insures the proclamation of truth. 

" This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached." 
When those words were uttered they were the most pre- 
posterous that ever passed the lips of man. They must 
have sounded strange tO' even the ears of Christ's follow- 
ers and friends. The world, even as they knew it, was 
large. The speaker, Christ himself, was a humble man, 
with no money to make even a beginning of such mission- 
ary endeavor; with no position of power from which to 
proclaim his will in the matter; while his followers were 
few and feeble. And yet the possibility of having this 
proclamation perfected was apparent at the end of the 
first century, when the Roman world had not only heard 
this truth but, in great part, received it. And while the 
world of to-day is so much larger^ there never was a 
time when this promise seemed so near to realization as 
now. Less than thirty-five years ago, in New York City, 
A. B. Simpson, a plain man, and a faithful preacher, 
gave up his Presbyterian pastorate and inaugurated what 
has come to be known as the Christian and Missionary 
Alliance; and to-day the messengers of that Alliance are 
beneath every sun, being heard by almost every people, 
and out of the deepest poverty, the brethren and sisters 
of that movement are contributing more than half a mil- 
lion a year to missions. 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION 223 

The Moravian movement is perhaps even a better illus- 
tration of how a feeble folk can be made a multitude for 
God; and, from an apparently insignificant center, send 
their missionaries to the ends of the earth. When Mott's 
book was published this little company of believers had 
three hundred and seventy-nine missionaries on foreign 
fields; while their membership at home was less than 
twenty-five thousand communicants, or about one for 
every forty Northern Baptists. Such has been their con- 
tribution of men and money to foreign fields that to-day 
their converts from heathenism are nearly three times 
as many as their church-membership at home. If other 
evangelical Protestants of Great Britain and America 
gave as much per capita as do- these Moravian brethren, 
we would have something more than sixty millions of 
dollars with which to send forth messengers of the truth ; 
and, with that much at our command per annum, we 
could preach to every heathen in the world in less than 
ten years. Our ability in this matter is the measure of 
our responsibility ; and whether or not any such increase 
will come to our missionary endeavor we have already 
seen enough to understand that Christ's promise that 
" this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the 
world " is going to have a literal fulfilment. 

Not a people or place will he passed over. 

The time was when members of Protestant churches 
seriously questioned whether God meant his gospel for all 
peoples. The opening up of new continents has brought 
to their attention whole races that were so low and loath- 
some that some said, " Nothing will ever save these na- 
tions." But the falsity of that opinion is now put be- 
yond dispute. Those who have been fortunate enough to 
hear Mr. Fred Haggard describe graphically how the gos- 
pel had changed a naked, filthy, sinful Assamese woman 
into a refined, sensitive, and sensible Christian, and how. 



224 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

in five short years, whole heathen villages in Assam had 
been so transformed by the power of God that one, 
turning back to visit them, was made to feel that he had 
been lifted out of heathenism and set down in a Christian 
land, will doubt no more. 

The people of the Society Islands were not only sav- 
age, ferocious, and cannibalistic, but such was their im- 
morality that Arthur Pierson says : " It would outrage all 
decency even to speak of the things which were done of 
them." And yet young Williams had scarcely passed 
his boyhood when he was privileged to see their idols 
burned, their temples destroyed, all their customs 
changed, and chapels seating hundreds and in some in- 
stances thousands erected. They being saved themselves 
became zealous missionaries to the other benighted peoples 
of the earth, and it is written : " When Mr. Williams first 
visited Raratonga, in 1823, he found them all heathen. 
When he left in 1834, they were all Christians." 

Even Henry Martyn once wrote : " How shall it ever be 
possible to convince a Hindu or a Brahmin of any- 
thing? . . Truly, if ever I see a Hindu a real believer 
in Jesus I shall see something more nearly approaching 
the resurrection of a dead body than anything I have yet 
seen." But Martyn lived to see even that, and to-day we 
count our Hindu converts by the hundreds. 

Mott tells us that Manchuria is about eight hundred 
miles long and five hundred miles wide. It has a popu- 
lation something short of twenty-five million, mostly Chi- 
nese. Twenty-three years before his book was written 
there were three converts there, and eighteen years later 
only four thousand baptized members of the churches. 
But at the time of his writing there were twenty thousand 
members, and the Rev. William Hunter, a missionary, ex- 
pressed the opinion that ten times twenty thousand had 
finished forever with their idol-worship, and that those 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION 225 

who were definitely moving toward the acceptance of 
Christianity were even in excess of two hundred thou- 
sand. 

Time fails one to speak of Murray's work in southern 
Africa; of Baptist work on the Upper Congo; the salva- 
tion of the thousands of the wild men of Burma; the 
baptism of the thousands of the Telugus in the Lone Star 
Mission; of "the wonderful story of Madagascar"; of 
Methodist success in China; of the Presbyterians in 
Korea; and of other fields whose romances of missions 
have been scarcely less remarkable. But these suffice to 
show that there are no peoples so low but God can save 
them with the gospel of his Son ; it is indeed his power to 
every one that believes. 

That there are none who' will be passed over is evi- 
dent from the present progress of civilization. Mott re- 
ported 454,730 miles of railway. Thousands have been 
added since. That meant eighteen air-lines around the 
world, and one hundred and seventy thousand miles of 
submarine cables, not to speak of the thousands and 
thousands of miles of overland cables. Every nation is 
coming into instantaneous touch with its neighbor, and 
ere many days the remotest heathen will be within tele- 
phone distance of those who have received the light from 
heaven. 

A long time now we have been singing: 

Thou, whose almighty word 
Chaos and darkness heard, 

And took their flight, 
Hear us, we humbly pray; 
And where the gospel's day 
Sheds not its glorious ray, 

Let there be light ! 

But it must occur to us that while we have addressed this 
appeal to God he turns it back to us, and if the people 



22.(y THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

that now sit in darkness ever see the light, it will be only 
when we who are ministers of his 

Move o'er the water's face, 
Bearing the lamp of grace. 

It is time we ceased asking God to do our work. 
The purpose of this proclamation is here defined, 
" This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all 
the world for a zvitness to all the nations." When we 
speak of the evangelization of the world we do not neces- 
sarily mean the conversion of every man, woman, and 
child in it. If that were required, even in the light of our 
largest blessings, we might expect centuries, if not millen- 
niums, to be expended on the effort. But to bear witness 
is an easier task, and one readily within the power of this 
generation. When we remember that there are one hun- 
dred and forty million Protestants in the world, and that 
all each of these needs to do is to tell ten of his fel- 
lows the story of the gospel, we realize how near the end 
may be. When we think on this we are brought into 
sympathy with Dr. G. W. Northrup's arraignment of in- 
activity on the part of God's people. Some years ago at 
Cincinnati, when his denomination was in its annual as- 
sembly, he preached that wonderful sermon on " The 
Evangelization of the World," in which he said : " Why 
is it that the heresy of unbelief is regarded with such 
apprehension or alarm, while the heresy of inaction is 
viewed with comparative indifference? Is faith without 
works any better than works without faith? Are they 
not alike dead and displeasing to God, equally vain and 
perilous ? To the heresy of inaction, far more than to the 
heresy of unbelief, is due the deplorable fact that the 
midnight darkness of heathenism still envelops nearly 
two-thirds of the population of the globe." 
Again, we call your attention to 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION 227 



THE CLIMAX OF CHRISTIAN EFFORT 

" And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in 
all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall 
the end come." 

That is the glorious consummation. It means, first 
of all, the end of this age. Who would not see it come? 
When one looks round about and remembers that this 
has been an age peculiarly marked by sin, an age in which 
that great trinity of iniquities — the saloon, the gambling- 
house, and the bagnio — have been daily growing in power, 
victimizing the multitudes ; an age also in which ignorance 
and superstition and squalor have submerged the millions 
and brought untold sufferings to the innocent as well as 
to the guilty ; an age now baptized in human blood, shed 
by the wildest butchery the world has ever known, he is 
ready to have it come to an end. 

Henry T. Chapman, of Leeds, England, quotes the 
author of a book on India as saying : " One day I stood 
near one of the great temples (of India). With me was 
a friend. While we stood there, there came a native 
woman carrying a little child in her arms. She took no 
notice of us. But when she got to the foot of the temple 
steps she threw herself prone on the ground, holding 
up the baby in her arms. We looked and saw that the 
baby was ill-shapen, and had none of that beauty and 
loveliness which characterize infant life. Then she 
prayed this prayer : ' Oh, grant that my child may grow 
fair as other children; grant that it may grow comely; 
grant that it may grow strong! Oh, hear the cry of a 
mother, and of a mother's breaking heart ! * And her 
prayer was finished; she arose, and was passing away, 
when the missionary said, ' Friend, to whom have you 
prayed ? ' She answered : ' I do not know ; but surely 
somewhere there must be some one to hear the cry 



228 THE PERENNIAL REVIVAL 

of a mother's heart, and to keep a mother's heart from 
breaking/ " 

When this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in 
all the world for a witness to all nations, then the end 
of such ignorance shall come. Oh, that it might be in this 
generation ! 

It is evident also, that ivith that time Christ shall come. 

A secretary of Foreign Missions, Dr. Henry C. Mabie, 
commenting on this passage of Scripture, said : " By 
' end ' here I understand the consummation. After the 
testimony of Peter — Pentecost! After the testimony of 
Luther — Reformation! After the testimony of Mora- 
vians, the Careys, the Judsons, Livingstones, Morrisons, 
Duffs, and Patons, the consummation! Christ does not 
tell us just what kind of a consummation. There are a 
great many kinds to be climaxed at last by the great, 
greater, greatest of all consummations — the personal com- 
ing of the Lord." 

No man can look out upon the earth to-day and wit- 
ness the conflicts between rulers and nations, the neces- 
sity for sword and slaughter, without longing in his 
heart for the time to come when men shall cease from 
the shedding of blood, when oppression shall be no more, 
because God has fulfilled to his Son the promise of mak- 
ing him " King of kings and Lord of lords," and privi- 
leged him that universal dominion in which " all people, 
nations, and languages shall serve him," and given to 
him that " everlasting kingdom " that Daniel declares 
" shall never be destroyed." 

There are few prayers written into verse that one should 
plead more earnestly than this : 

Hasten, Lord, the glorious time. 

When beneath Messiah's sway, 
Every nation, every clime, 

Shall the gospel call obey. 



WORLD EVANGELIZATION 22g 

Mightiest kings his power shall own. 

Heathen tribes his name adore; 
Satan and his host, o'erthrown, 

Bound in chains, shall hurt no more. 

Oh, we want to see it — the day of his coronation! 
Thank God for the privilege of doing anything that shall 
hasten it. Thank God for the privilege of giving anything 
that shall make it more glorious when once it shall come, 
for the privilege of sending one's mite for the salvation of 
that multitude whose praises shall yet rock the earth and 
reach to heaven. We believe, by the grace of God, when 
that day is on, we shall meet our prayers again, and 
our money again, and all the sympathies we have ever 
felt, and all the sacrifices we have ever made, in the form 
of saved ones ; and, as we listen to those from Asia, from 
Africa, from the isles of the sea, joining their voices with 
those from Europe and from our own land, shouting the 
praises of " him who sitteth upon the throne," we shall 
only be sorry that we invested so little and prayed for 
them so seldom. 

They tell us that the Princess Eugenia, of Sweden, 
moved by the sight of the sick-poor in the island of Gott- 
land, finding that her funds, were exhausted, stripped her 
person of every jewel, and put the price thereof into a 
hospital. One day there came into the hospital a poor 
woman, ignorant and suffering and sinful. Eugenia 
prayed much for her. When the winter came on, and 
the princess had to depart for the city, she went to tell 
the woman good-bye, and found her much changed in 
character. As the princess approached her bed, the 
woman greeted her with these words : " I thank God 
that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from 
all sin," and the tears of gratitude glistened in her eyes. 
As the princess passed out she said : " In those tears of 
penitence I have seen my diamonds again." 



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